I’m watching David Axelrod's new show on CNN, called The Axe Files, where he is interviewing John McCain. David asks Senator McCain "if he sees a comparison between Presidents Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.”:
"No, I don't," he told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.
McCain said he found "appalling" Trump's assertion in an interview earlier this year that the US lacked the moral standing to question Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights abuses. "
We've got a lot of killers. What do you think, our country's so innocent?" Trump said at the time.
"To state that there's some moral equivalency between an imperfect nation -- that's the United States of America -- and Vladimir Putin is appalling," McCain responded.
"And I think it's pretty clear that there's a difference between, well, aren't we killers and the guy that stood there and said, 'Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall,'" he said, recalling Reagan's historic challenge to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev delivered in a 1987 speech at the Berlin Wall.
In contrast to Trump's posture toward Russia, Reagan "spoke out for the captive nations" under Soviet rule and gave hope to the citizens there, McCain said. "That's a pretty big difference."
"It's one thing to destroy a building with a bomb or inflict damage, but if you destroy the fundamentals of a free and open society, which is what democracy is all about, you inflict incredibly heavier damage," he said.
Given how thoughtful and soft spoken both of these are men are this episode is surprisingly engaging and even moving. One can sense a great mutual respect despite their different political affiliations.
Senator McCain also share’s pictures of when he was shot down as a Navy pilot in Vietnam and held as a POW.
I come away with greater hope for our political futures.