Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Sometimes a nickname just sticks. The maverick maverick maverick maverick everyone knows is a maverick. Here comes the maverick. Despite being a lifelong conservative Arizona Senator John McCain was never afraid to go against the grain. But he said he never considered himself a maverick. This is not a not a label he really embraced all the time not being a maverick. But I liked standing up for what I believe. This is how a war hero and a career politician learned to march to the beat of his own drum. Much to the chagrin of his own party John McCain had a reputation as a bit of a bad boy and he wasn't always the best student when he was in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis LOreal SEO covered McCain mostly in the 80s. McCain crashed a few planes and he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. 1967 was a very tough year for McCain. Within one month of active duty in the Navy he suffered injuries from a massive fire onboard the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin. 134 sailors died in the tragedy and John only 30 at the time narrowly averted Death himself. Only three months later McCain was shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner in Hanoi where he was held in solitary tortured and beaten repeatedly for years. McCain's time as a prisoner of war left him permanently disabled unable to lift his arms above his head. McCain returned to the U.S. a war hero and he decided to get involved in politics. He ran for the U.S. House in 1982 and won. In 1986 he ran for the U.S. Senate and won that seat as well. But McCain's first term became embroiled in what came to be known as the Keating Five scandal where he and four the lawmakers were accused of improperly intervening in a probe by federal regulators to help. Charles Keating CEO of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. After a slap on the wrist and a slightly tarnished reputation McCain bounced back by reaching across the aisle on campaign finance reform with Democrat Russ Feingold. He successfully sponsored a major overhaul of the campaign finance system. Despite the objections of Republican leaders after serving over 10 years in Congress McCain decided to run for the top job himself. During the 2000 Republican presidential primaries McCain took some unorthodox stances saying some things that Republicans are really never supposed to say such as. I'm deeply concerned about a kind of class warfare that's going on right now. It's unfortunate. There's a growing gap between the haves and have nots in America and I'm not sure we need to give two thirds of that tax cut of that money to the wealthiest 10 percent of America McCain's defeat in the primaries didn't stop him from resisting Bush's platform. During his presidency Senator McCain infuriated many fellow Republicans by opposing President George W. Bush's tax cuts and also by cosponsoring legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He was also alone in his party to speak out against so-called enhanced interrogation techniques after 9/11. McCain's captors in Vietnam coerced a false confession from him so he believed perhaps more strongly than anyone that torture did not work. By 2008 his reputation of a maverick became a full fledged brand something he embraced wholeheartedly for his second presidential bid. I'm a maverick. I've been called a maverick. He's the original maverick. I think I'm going to have to cast my vote for the maverick. Now we're called a team of mavericks. But it quickly became clear that Sarah Palin was a different kind of maverick the one that probably didn't help his campaign. One of his biggest regrets he says in his new book was choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate over one of his best friends in the Senate Joe Lieberman. But there was another way McCain's maverick ways defied his own interests during his failed bid for the White House. We're scared of an Obama presidency. He resisted demagoguery and insisted that his supporters respect Barack Obama. I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as a United States now. Change has come to America. Unfortunately John McCain couldn't make it recently claimed that he had never identified himself as a maverick. And we all know what happens in Arizona when you don't have ID. McCain was a tough critic of Obama's administration. But along the way he insisted on open debate and decorum and he reached across the aisle on issues like immigration reform then Trump happened. That is some group of people thousands. Suffice it to say their intra party relations left something to be desired. Despite this McCain did insist on supporting Trump as the Republican nominee. The best thing to do is put it behind us and move forward until THIS at which point McCain withdrew his support for Donald Trump's presidency. McCain's resistance to Trump continued right into the presidency. Senator McCain has stood out by his willingness to oppose President Trump. Other Republicans have been much more willing to march in lockstep with President Then one fateful summer night on the Senate floor. After just being diagnosed with brain cancer Sen. John McCain made an appearance to cast the deciding vote against the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare. But it was a stunning vote in a very dramatic night in the Senate chamber.