Steve Schmidt Apologizes to the New York Times, Says Former Boss John McCain Lied to America
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
Steve Schmidt, a former senior strategist on then-Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, published a scathing expose and mea culpa late Sunday night and apologized publicly to the New York Times for denying reporting he now claims was accurate regarding McCain.
“I would like to apologize to the journalists whose bylines appear on the story,” Schmidt wrote on his newly launched Substack. “Their credibility, integrity, and professionalism were unfairly attacked by the McCain campaign of which I was a part of. I got it wrong. These journalists, like many others, were also victims of this lie.”
The story in question was a February 2008 article titled, For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk, in which four reporters detail McCain’s longtime, potentially romantic relationship, with a lobbyist.
Jim Rutenberg, the journalist who has the first byline on the story, told CNN’s Oliver Darcy on Monday night, “Of course, it’s good to see Steve set the record straight, but we stood by the story then and continue to stand by it now, as we always had confidence in the reporting of four journalists conducted over months…”
Schmidt pulls no punches in his retelling of the scandal, which threatened to derail McCain’s presidential campaign, writing:
Over time, that lie has become heavier as I have been abused by the family of the man I worked for as a volunteer. The burden of carrying this lie – while being attacked for 14 consecutive years by the bully Megan McCain (sic) – has finally reached its end for me.
This lie is Senator John McCain’s lie. It is his family’s burden to carry, not mine.
Schmidt adds that McCain denied having any inappropriate ties to the lobbyist in question “dozens of times to my face.”
Schmidt, who has become a fierce critic of today’s Republican Party and Donald Trump, detailed the McCain’s response to the Times reporting:
Immediately following the story’s publication, John and Cindy McCain both lied to the American people at a news conference that I prepared them for on that same day.
Both denied the story to me personally, as did the lobbyist at the center of the story. They also lied to the American people.
Schmidt then goes on to explain how McCain concerned his campaign was over, confided in Schmidt, saying, “Boy, I had a long relationship with her.”
Schmidt, who is partly credited with McCain’s decision to put Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) on the 2008 ticket, says he then left the campaign, but eventually returned and helped to contain both the story and the lobbyist from the public’s eye:
I was livid, and flew home to California. After he obsessively called for days afterwards, I (foolishly) returned to the campaign trail.
For the next several months, there was not a single night that passed that I did not spend hours on the phone with a broken, distraught and profoundly unstable lobbyist. She screamed at me incoherently for hours every night. I became the shock absorber for her rage, anger, and humiliation. I did this to protect John McCain and the campaign.
Schmidt spoke to Axios’ Mike Allen, in an interview published Tuesday, where Allen asked Schmidt if he is concerned that his airing of McCain’s dirty laundry will blow back on him at all.
“I asked Schmidt if he worries about appearing unhinged,” wrote Allen.
“There is some soft consensus that has emerged, mostly from soft people,” Schmidt reportedly replied, “that responding to smears and slurs and insanity is some combination of unhinged or giving attention. This is as profoundly wrong a sensibility as there could conceivably be.”
Allen also pushed Schmidt on whether or not he had any proof or would be providing documentation to back up his claims.
“What will happen next is a number of people will go out and try to debunk what I said, maybe,” Schmidt said. “And if they do, the conclusions of that effort will be solidifying the proof of what I said.”
Schmidt told CNN that he now plans to spend more time writing on Substack and less of his time throwing bombs on Twitter.
