John McCain Dead: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

John McCain, John McCain senate, John McCain congress

Getty Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) speaks at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol February 24, 2016 in Washington, DC.

John McCain, the former presidential candidate and war hero who survived torture in Hanoi to serve three decades as a U.S. Senator, at times vexing his own party as a “maverick” who cast the key vote on healthcare reform, is dead at the age of 81.

McCain died at 4:28 p.m. on August 25, 2018, not long after his family announced that he was ceasing treatment for brain cancer. He was surrounded by his wife, Cindy, and his family when he died. His office released a statement, highlighting how McCain had served his country “faithfully for sixty years” at the time of his death.

The son of an Admiral who hailed from a family with a long legacy of military tradition, McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, spent his entire life in public service, first serving in the Navy for 22 years (and spending more than five of those years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war). He served in Congress since 1982, became a U.S. Senator in 1987, and was the 2008 Republican nominee for president.

McCain’s death comes after the Arizona Republican revealed in July 2017 that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer. Specifically, McCain was diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is a particularly aggressive form of the cancer. Even before he passed away, there was jockeying for his seat in the U.S. Senate, a seat the Republicans want to hold.

McCain died from the same form of brain cancer that felled U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy and Beau Biden, the son of former vice president Joe Biden. Kennedy survived 15 months after his diagnosis, which is about the median survival rate for that kind of tumor; Beau Biden lived two years. Indeed, Joe Biden consoled McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, on the set of the television show, The View, as news spread that her father was weakening. McCain went home to Arizona for Christmas, missing a vote on tax reform, the first signal that he might not return to Washington. In the days before his death, he was clearly weakening as his family announced he would no longer seek treatment.

Here’s what you need to know:


1. McCain Revealed He Was Suffering From Brain Cancer Last Summer & Slowly Declined

John McCain scar, John McCain Senate, John McCain health

GettySenator John McCain arrived in Washington with a scar over his left eye alongside his wife, Cindy McCain.

John McCain revealed that he had brain cancer in July 2017. McCain released a statement to the news media at that time that said in part, “On Friday, July 14, Sen. John McCain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. Subsequent tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma was associated with the blood clot. Scanning done since the procedure (a minimally invasive craniotomy with an eyebrow incision) shows that the tissue of concern was completely resected by imaging criteria.”

McCain was hospitalized in December 2017 as news reports started to come out that his health was failing. According to the Hill, President Trump called McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, on December 15 after McCain was hospitalized. But he held on.

“McCain was hospitalized…at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington due to side effects from his cancer treatment,” reported The Hill. McCain was taken to the hospital in the midst of the tax reform bill in the Senate; according to The Hill, he voted “in favor of Senate Republicans’ initial bill” earlier in December 2017, but had not yet said how he would vote on the final tax reform package.

A glioblastoma is the most common brain tumor that affects adults. It is also the most rapidly growing malignant tumor of the brain, with the shortest survival rate,” NBC reported. Although McCain slowly weakened after announcing his diagnosis, he was able to attend the wedding of his daughter Meghan.

“After a health scare two weeks ago, McCain returned home to Arizona to spend the holidays with his family. He tweeted on Dec. 18 that he was ‘looking forward to returning to work after the holidays,'” The Hill reported.


2. McCain Was the Son of an Admiral & His Family Has a Long Legacy of Military Service

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When McCain went to war in Vietnam, he did so as the son of an Admiral. According to Biography.com, “The son of a decorated Navy admiral, John McCain was born at the Coco Solo Naval Station in Panama on August 29, 1936. He enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy and was dispatched to Vietnam, where he was tortured as a prisoner of war between 1967 and 1973.”

He was born John Sidney McCain III, “the second of three children born to naval officer John S. McCain Jr. and his wife, Roberta.” It was a family with a long legacy of military service. “Both McCain’s father and paternal grandfather, John S. McCain Sr., were four-star admirals, with John Jr. rising to command U.S. naval forces in the Pacific,” Biography.com reported.

McCain’s two youngest sons, Jack and Jimmy, are also in the U.S. military. Jimmy serves as a Marine, and has served tours in Iraq. John is a Navy lieutenant and helicopter pilot. As of the date of his death, McCain’s mother was still alive at the age of 106-years-old.

McCain’s Vietnamese captors during his years as a POW figured out that his father was an admiral. “Though initially refusing to give McCain medical treatment, the North Vietnamese, upon discovering that McCain’s father was an admiral in the Navy, decided to give him medical care,” ABC News reported.


3. McCain Was Tortured & Interrogated as a POW by the North Vietnamese, Suffering Injuries That Lasted His Entire Life

U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jay Coupe, Center Left, Escorts Lt. Cmdr. John Mccain To A Waiting U.S. Air Force C-141A Starlifter Cargo Transport Aircraft At Gia Lam Airport March 14, 1973 In Hanoi, North Vietnam. McCain Had Just Been Released From A North Vietmanese Prison Camp.

John McCain spent 5 and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He wrote a firsthand account of what occurred, which was printed in U.S. News and World Report. “The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin,” McCain wrote.

A crowd of people converged on him, he wrote. “Some North Vietnamese swam out and pulled me to the side of the lake and immediately started stripping me, which is their standard procedure. Of course, this being in the center of town, a huge crowd of people gathered, and they were all hollering and screaming and cursing and spitting and kicking at me.” What ensued was years of captivity in brutal conditions as his captors interrogated him. “They beat me around a little bit. I was in such bad shape that when they hit me it would knock me unconscious. They kept saying, “You will not receive any medical treatment until you talk,” McCain recalled, the magazine article imparted.

mccain vietnam

U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jay Coupe, Center Left, Escorts Lt. Cmdr. John Mccain To A Waiting U.S. Air Force C-141A Starlifter Cargo Transport Aircraft At Gia Lam Airport March 14, 1973 In Hanoi, North Vietnam.

McCain’s injuries were severe both from the crash and his treatment as a POW. “When he noticed the injuries to his right leg –- which he says had fractured at the knee –- one of his captors slammed a rifle butt into his right shoulder, shattering it, the account said. He was then bayoneted in the abdomen and foot,” ABC News reported.

For two years, McCain was kept in solitary confinement. “I remained in solitary confinement from that time on for more than two years. I was not allowed to see or talk to or communicate with any of my fellow prisoners. My room was fairly decent-sized—I’d say it was about 10 by 10. The door was solid. There were no windows. The only ventilation came from two small holes at the top in the ceiling, about 6 inches by 4 inches. The roof was tin and it got hot as hell in there. The room was kind of dim—night and day—but they always kept on a small light bulb, so they could observe me. I was in that place for two years,” he described in the U.S. News and World Report article.

mccain hanoi

A photo taken in 1967 shows US Navy Airforce Major John McCain being examined by a Vietnamese doctor. John McCain, current US presidential hopeful, was captured in 1967 at a lake in Hanoi after his Navy warplane was been downed by Northern Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.

According to ABC News, the North Vietnamese eventually beat a confession out of McCain. “McCain says his torture began in August of 1968. ‘For the next four days, I was beaten every two or three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked,'” the network quoted him as saying. “After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords on Jan. 27, 1973, putting an end to the Vietnam War, McCain was released on March 14, 1973,” reported ABC, which noted that McCain’s injuries affected him for the rest of his life as he was not able to lift his arms over his shoulders.


4. McCain Developed a Reputation in the Senate for Bucking His Own Party & Once Ran For President

john mccain cancer jimmy carter

GettyWhy is John McCain’s brain cancer prognosis so much worse than Jimmy Carter’s?

John McCain is widely given the label of “maverick” for his unpredictable voting record in the U.S. Senate, although FiveThirtyEight found that the Republican chose the Donald Trump position on issues 82.7 percent of the time. The site contains a listing of McCain’s recent votes contrasted with the Trump position. In addition to the “skinny repeal” vote on healthcare, McCain split with the president on raising the debt limit for Hurricane Harvey relief and imposing sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea.

According to FiveThirtyEight, the maverick label dates to McCain’s presidential runs, but some people don’t believe the label fits. “McCain was first tagged a ‘maverick’ for standing up to his party when he ran for president in 2000 and 2008,” the site reports. In a lengthy analysis of whether McCain truly operated as a senatorial maverick, FiveThirtyEight reported, “Over his Senate career, McCain has been only slightly more likely than the average senator to vote against his party. On the other hand, there have been a few congresses in which McCain has been far more willing to buck the party line than most. McCain has been a fairly reliable Republican vote since entering the Senate in 1987. From 1987 to 2015, McCain voted with the Republican Party 87 percent of the time on party-line votes1 in the average Congress.” However, the number for the median senator was 91 percent, meaning that McCain was only a bit more likely to buck his party than the rest of his colleagues.

However, McCain has taken some high-profile positions and was considered a conservative vote. “He is against abortion in most circumstances and is very hawkish on foreign affairs and pro gun rights,” FiveThirtyEight noted, adding, “McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts, for reducing greenhouse emissions and for funding Obama’s executive action providing federal benefits to immigrants who are in the country illegally, in addition to arguing against torture.”

The site Politics That Work summarized McCain’s voting record over the years thusly: “Senator McCain opposes taxing businesses, restrict money in politics, disaster relief, funding education, environmental protection, gun control, hawkish foreign policy, public health, foreign and humanitarian aid, humane immigration policy, labor rights and wages, lgbt rights, taxing the middle class, poverty amelioration, racial equality, increasing revenues, taxing the wealthy, a robust safety net and supports big business, military spending, domestic surveillance.”

According to Ballotpedia, “McCain began his political career by winning election to the U.S. House in 1982. He served in that position until his election to the Senate in 1986. McCain unsuccessfully ran for president in 2008, losing to Barack Obama in the general election. McCain won re-election in 2016. He defeated Kelli Ward and Clair Van Steenwyk in the Republican primary. He faced Ann Kirkpatrick (D) in the general election. Arizona’s U.S. Senate race was rated as a race to watch in 2016.”

Ballotpedia labeled McCain a typical Republican vote in the U.S. Senate, writing, “Based on analysis of multiple outside rankings, McCain is an average Republican member of Congress, meaning he will vote with the Republican Party on the majority of bills.” He was the key vote, however, in the failed amendment “to repeal the requirements for individuals to enroll in health insurance and for employers to offer it,” the so-called “Skinny bill” on Obamacare repeal, handing President Trump, with whom McCain has feuded, a key legislative loss.


5. McCain Was Married Twice & Is the Father of Seven Children

John McCain daughter, John McCain family, John McCain Children

GettyCindy McCain (4th L), wife of Republican U.S presidential nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), stands with her children (L to R) Meghan, Andy, Jimmy, Jack, Doug, Bridget, and Sidney during day four of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Xcel Energy Center on September 4, 2008 in St. Paul, Minnesota. U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will accept the GOP nomination for U.S. President Thursday night.

John and his second wife Cindy McCain have four children together. He also has three children from his first marriage. The McCain children are three daughters and four sons. When McCain announced he had brain cancer in July 2017, the children were these ages: Douglas McCain, 57. Andrew McCain, 55. Sidney McCain, 50. Meghan McCain, 32. John Sidney McCain IV, 31. James McCain, 29 Bridget McCain, 25.

Meghan McCain boyfriend

GettyMeghan McCain.

Meghan McCain is probably the best known McCain offspring. When her father revealed he had brain cancer, she released a statement that read in part, “Cancer may afflict him in many ways: but it will not make him surrender. Nothing ever has.”

The senator was married once before, to his first wife, Carol Shepp, from 1965 to 1980, and he adopted her sons from a previous marriage. Those children are Doug, a pilot for American Airlines, and Andy, who is an executive at the family beer distribution company, Hensley & Co. John and Carol had Sidney together. She is in the music business.

McCain and Cindy Hensley married in 1980 and went on to have three children: Meghan, Jack, and Jimmy. They also adopted a daughter, Bridget. Second wife Cindy McCain inherited a fortune. John McCain’s finance disclosure reports indicate some of her wealth is held independently of him.

John McCain daughter, John McCain family, John McCain Children

GettySen. John McCain, Meghan McCain and Jimmy McCain attend “Raising McCain” Series New York Premiere at Tribeca Cinemas on September 12, 2013 in New York City.

Cindy inherited a “Phoenix beer distributorship that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” reported The New York Times. Sites that estimate celebrity net worth often peg Cindy’s net worth at more than $100 million, although no one knows the exact amount. McCain was photographed at his daughter’s wedding in fall 2017.

NPR reports that Cindy and John McCain signed a prenuptial agreement when they married in 1980. “Cindy Hensley met John McCain more than 20 years earlier at a party in Hawaii. He was a 43-year-old naval officer, married at the time. She was 25,” a 2008 NPR story read.

John McCain initially worked for his father-in-law and then ran for Congress with loans from Cindy, reports NPR. The couple has filed separate tax returns in past years, and their exact finances are a bit mysterious due to Cindy’s penchant for privacy, according to NPR.