Big Think

Question: What's your history covering John McCain?

Jeffrey Toobin: I don’t have extensive experience reporting with McCain. They were just a couple of stories in around 2002, 2003 where I had occasioned to talk to him several times, but it was very memorable. One of the things you do when you cover politics is you struggle for access. You try to get an appointment with this Senator or that Senator and they say, “Well, we’ll give you 15 minutes in between this meeting and that meeting.” It’s a completely different experience with the old John McCain. You call him up, he’d say, “Look, I’m going to be here. Call my wife’s cellphone, she’ll hand me the phone. Then call my cellphone.” It’s very seductive, it’s very appealing, and he was very open and funny and nice to me, which is the way he was with all the reporters. So, to see the Republican Convention turning into this snarling anger fest about the news media was just very striking to me.