‘The American People Know Me’

While riding in a black SUV through a crowd of protesters on his way to deliver a speech at the 2008 American GI Forum in Denver, Sen. John McCain spoke with NEWSWEEK's Suzanne Smalley. Edited excerpts:

Smalley: You value straight talk.
McCain: I'll give you that.

Some of your proposals seem a little gimmicky, like the $300 million prize for inventing a new, more powerful car battery. If someone were capable of inventing it, wouldn't they have done it already?
You could argue tax cuts could be viewed as a gimmick; anything we do for people to encourage American entrepreneurs and innovators could be viewed as a gimmick. And I don't view it as a gimmick. I view it as an incentive to address one of the most important challenges Americans face today, and that is to become energy-independent and to have automobiles that they can drive without having to be bankrupted.

You've advocated for lifting a ban on offshore drilling. Why is drilling there preferable to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
Because the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I believe that offshore drilling is clearly called for. I think we need to do it, and we have to do it.

You've taken heat lately for a string of misstatements about foreign-policy issues. Some news reports have suggested your age could be slowing you down. How do you explain those gaffes?
I spend most of my days with town-hall meetings and with people—people like you. And occasionally there will be a misstatement. But you know, at a town-hall meeting I've never had a person stand up and say, "Hey, Senator McCain, you've made a gaffe." They stand up and they say, "How do I stay in my home? How do I keep my job? How do I afford to drive to work?" Et cetera. And, by the way, some of those "gaffes" have not been [misstatements], but they've been portrayed as such. But I'm not complaining. It's fine with me. The American people know me.

On torture, why should the CIA be treated differently from the armed services regarding the use of harsh interrogation tactics?
Because they play a special role in the United States of America and our ability to combat terrorists. But we have made it very clear that there is nothing they can do that would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act, which prohibits torture. We could never torture anyone, but some people misconstrue that who don't understand what the Detainee Treatment Act and the Geneva Conventions are all about.