> in depth with john mccain. i sat down with senator mccain a while ago in the armed services committee hearing room. he was very candid. he disagrees strongly with what justice scalia said about super pacs. about michele bachmann and what he thinks about romney's record at bain. senator, thank you for finally allowing me to interview you. you finally cracked. >> finally gave in, there you go. looking forward to it. >> so have i, very much. let's start with we're three months away from the election. you've been exactly where mitt romney is right now. what is your advice? what is the real strategy at this stage of the battle plan that you think he needs to be most aware of? >> i think it's very obvious, piers, and that's jobs and the economy. most people don't care when mitt romney left bain capital and went to run the olympics and save them or exactly where his tax returns are. so i think the focus obviously is what most americans are caring about now. we do have a very stumbling economy, that's the best description, and so jobs in the economy, jobs in the economy. i feel very strongly about some national security issues which you and i will be talking about later on. and i wish more americans were involved in these national security issues. but it's understandable that jobs and the economy is the key to winning the election in november. >> given that it's going to be about the economy, i completely concur with that, clearly, a lot of attention, now, on mitt romney's business record. on his tax affairs and so on. let's go through this stage by stage. in terms of his record at bain, clearly when you took him on a few years ago, as everybody does in these campaigns, you were pretty critical of his record at bain and, deed, as governor of massachusetts. how much of a problem is it going to be if barack obama begins repying tt criticism and indeed froother senior republicans to say, come on, ev you guys didn't t he was that great? >> wel probably the same impression that people have when they show hillary clinton saying "shame on you, barack obama." i never reached that point in my debates. look, thingsre said in potical campgns whicar pretty tough. it's not bean bag. can recall when herbert walker bush called reagan voodoo economics and he ended up being his running mate. i think most people understa in the case of mitt romney and me, after the primary was over, no one worked harder for my campaign. we became good friends. and i obviously, as you know, supported and endorsed him very early, in hopes to have some impact in the new hampshire primary. >> being as dispassionate as you can be, do you think he was formally a force for job creation? or some other people say look, that's fine, he did create jobs, but he also wrecked a lot of jobs. >> you know, the problem with the free enterprise system is that not everybody succeeds. the great thing about communism and the old soviet union is nobody ever failed. so the point is that in this system that bain is involved in, they went to companies and groups that were either struggling or just beginning, and they invested. sometimes they failed. sometimes they succeeded. best example of course i'm sure you've heard many times. a warehouse and $5 million ended up as staples. it's so obvious that bain was in the business to make money. and i know how evil that is for people to make money, don't get me that wrong. i know how terrible that is. they were in the business to make money. in the process, they created thousands of jobs. unfortunately, the downside to the free enterprise system is that sometimes businesses fail. i think it's important to note and, again, this, i hope, will come out, mitt romney would probably made one heck of a lot more money if he'd have stayed at bain capital instead of going out to save the olympics. the olympics at salt lake were about to collapse. there was corruption. all kinds problems. he went out there and worked 16 hours a day and made it a very profitable enterprise. >> that is undeniably true. he turned around those olympics. that was inincredibly successful. >> and left bain capital. which then meant he didn't make a lot more money than he was already making. >> he's not exactly struggling, is he? let's be honest. >> no, he's not. >> you were in a unique position. obviously when he was vetted to potentially run with you, you got to see these, now, infamous documents detailing his financial affairs, going back many years. you said you didn't see anything that should be a concern. the obvious question is, if that is the case, why is he being so reluctant to put them out there? his own father put out 12 years of records. why doesn't he just do it? >> well, first of all, let me put this in context. when -- and this is done by everybody, when you're vetting people that you're considering to be your running mate, you ask for every kind of confidential information. one of the things you guarantee those people when they give you that information, that is will remain confidential. i feel agretful that i say our team saw nothing in his tax returns that would have been damaging. second of all, look, i released two years. john kerry didn't release his wife's tax returns. it's been a standard of behavior. and what, frankly, they worry about, okay, release five years, why not 10, why not 15, on and on like that. it's a decision the romney campaign has to make. but to somehow say that he should do something that no other candidate in recent history has done, i think is patently unfair. >> just to clarify, you never saw anything that you think would cause him embarrassment? >> of course not. >> i mean the implication is because we know -- we know about swiss bank account, cayman islands, so on, that there is more of that stuff that would over time show he saved a lot of money through tax -- it's not illegal, but through sharp tax practice. >> well, first of all, as i said, i saw nothing -- or my team saw nothing in any way that would be harmful. but the important point here is that we now have a campaign based on his tax returns or not his tax returns. the obama campaign has sunk so low that his deputy campaign manager miss cutter says he may have committed a felony. i have to tell you, i have not seen a presidential campaign where it fell this low this early, where he may have been a felon. really? on what basis of fact would anybody say anything like this? listen, this is a chicago-style desperate campaign that the obama people are running -- >> what does chicago-style mean? >> chicago style means there's very few depths you won't plummet. this may have been a felon reaches a new depth i haven't seen before. maybe it's happened before -- >> seriously, the lowest you've ever seen? >> i've not seen anyone accused of possibly being a felon. i would have never considered any opponent of mine saying they could be a felon but that's just part of the tenor of the campaign. now, i -- >> let me throw it back to you though on that point. >> sure, but let me finish with one additional point if i could. now they've run an ad making fun of mitt romney singing "america the beautiful." now, is that really -- is that really the right thing to do? i hope that every american at every event will sing "america the beautiful" where people do that. so now you ridicule somebody because they sing that off key? that's this chicago-style politics. go ahead. >> having said that, and i don't dispute what you said at all, and many people wouldn't, isn't mitt romney a victim of his own savagery? i mean, when i was running around the republican race, he was using this to absolutely brutalize his opponent. the most negative stuff i've ever seen. certainly far more negative than anything i've seen in british politics. i was stunned. i'm not sure you can do that kind of campaign and then stand back and go, come on, you're not being fair to me. >> your point is well made in this respect. probably not complain about it. let other people judge whether it is -- let me people like me and others make that judgjudgment. that is perfectly accurate. i will say in all fairness the attacks on john kerry and the swift boaters back that that campaign was something i did not approve of. >> you were the victim of tremendous smear campaigns. calling him apparently possibly a felon you think was even worse because you had some terrible -- >> someone committed a crime that would put them in jail if they were guilty. but that's just an example. look, this is going to be -- i guarantee, this is going to be the roughest, toughest campaign that i have ever observed. it's already that way. and so one of the unfortunate aspects of this is it makes voters even more cynical and it drives both candidates unfavorables up but again -- >> we'll come back to that in a moment. >> key to this campaign is jobs and the economy. that's why i believe romney will eventually win. >> let's take a break. come back and talk about syria, which has blown up again today, and also about michele bachmann who you've been ripping into to the delight of people on both sides of the political divide. stay in the moment sanya focus lolo, focus let's do this i am from baltimore south carolina... bloomington, california... austin, texas... we are all here to represent the country we love this is for everyone back home it's go time. across america, we're all committed to team usa. ♪ what started as a whisper every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? 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>> what we should have done a long time ago. was join with other nations and set up a safe zone and together provide arms and equipment to the resistance fighters who are being massacred. it's not surprising that, again, a resolution failed in the united nations. it's really a sad spectacle to see the united states of america and its policies and actions dictated by the u.n. security council where russia and china exercise a veto. we didn't do that when we went to kosovo to save muslims. it's a totally failure of american leadership. if america would lead with other countries, and i do not mean american boots on the ground, we could bring the assad regime down. now, everybody says that the assad regime will fail. i agree with that but it's been 17 months of slaughter. >> the best parallels i've seen you make, if you don't mind me jumping in there, is bosnia. because you met a guy dish was very moved by this when i read it. you met a guy who had been in bosnia. you met him in a turkish refugee camp for syrians. and he said to you, i can't believe this is happening again. because the parallels are very, very similar. and of course then bill clinton eventually a democratic president decided to do something. we now have another democratic president. similar situation. is it time president obama did something? >> yes, and one the sad aspects of this, he doesn't even speak up on these people's behalf. did you ever hear him? have we seen at all him from the oval office saying what's going on today in syria is terrible, they've set up torture centers. a manner of their interrogation is to gang rape young women, kill children in front of their parents. >> you met some of these people? >> in a refugee camp. defectors from their army who said their instruction and orders were to do this torture and rape and murder. and yet you mention bill clinton. bill clinton also went to bosnia, as you know, kosovo. he said his greatest regret, president clinton said, was not intervening in rwanda where some 800,000 people were killed. it cries out for american leadership. and when i see the secretary of defense make comments just like you just made, i've been hearing that same comments for 17 months. while the massacre goes on. and these countries in the region, some of them are helping already. but it cries out for american leadership. >> if you were president, if you'd won the last election, what would you be doing now? >> with the knowledge the russians and chinese are probably going to hamper any effort with the united nations, i would talk with the willing. saudi arabia, the gulf states, other other states. even libya is willing to help out now after their experience. and the turks. and work together a coalition where we would set up the safe zone and we would be supplying and equipping the resistance. and giving them the aid that they need. the longer this lasts, the more brutal, the more massacres, the more brutality and the more likelihood these extremist elements enter in, the more likelihood that these chemical weapons stockpiles that al assad has gets in the wrong hands or maybe even used. so it is in our intere. finally, one of our generals, general over central command, said it would be the greatest blow to iran in 25 years because of its effect on lebanon, hezbollah, et cetera. and the thing that makes me so sad, when we hear this from the secretary of state who i admire and leon panetta, it's not a fair fight. the arms are coming in from russia. there's iranians on the ground. they have established torture centers. why can't we help these people? and frankly i have to be honest with you, there are people on the right of my party, the same ones who passed a resolution through the house of representatives, that we shouldn't do anything about libya, by the way, which just had a fair election where a moderate was overwhelming majority of the votes -- so -- >> is part of the problem that -- i would say the majority of american people, from what i sense, haven't really understand what's happening in syria? because unlike, say, in egypt, beamed to the world every night. you saw these guys on horseback. attacking people. the imagery was so stark. people could relate to it in america. and then began to demand something happened. i'm not sensing that demand from the american people. they're more like, you know what, it's happening there, we've got bigger problems. >> well, first of all, i agree with that. but i would point out that it requires leadership to tell the american people what's going on. we didn't have nearly the coverage, frankly, in sebrenitsa and kosovo we had. so it requires american leadership to inform the american people. and second of all, it is a situation that the united states, the population, unless their attention is directed to it, it's jobs and the economy. they're war weary from iraq and afghanistan. i understand that. so it requires american leadership. and to tell the american people. the american people are the best people in the world. british as well. we believe, we believe that america has a special role to play in the world. we believe in american exceptionalism. unfortunately, i don't think president obama does. >> one of the problems people say is there's no real dialogue now between republicans and democrats as there used to be. i want to come back after the break and talk to you about the state of washington right now. has it ever been this bad? 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>> i say that's true but i also think there's a variety of reasons, include a polarization amongst the american people. it's