Joe Biden Says He Introduced John and Cindy McCain: 'Go Up and Meet Her'

"I said, 'Go up and meet her,' and he wouldn't do it. So I went up and I introduced them. They ended up getting married," Biden told Conan O'Brien in a new interview

The late John McCain and his wife, Ambassador Cindy McCain, had an unlikely matchmaker when it came to their nearly 40-year courtship: President Joe Biden.

In a new interview with Conan O’Brien for his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, the president said that he and the late senator, a Republican, became friends despite their differing party affiliations during myriad travels.

"John ended up traveling with me well over 300,000 miles, and we became friends," Biden told O'Brien. "Matter of fact, I introduced him to his wife."

The two were traveling to Japan and stopped in Hawaii in April 1979 where, at a military reception in Honolulu, John met Cindy, who was on a family vacation.

"We were going to Japan and we stopped in Hawaii. And the Admiral's daughter was this beautiful woman, who now works with me, and he talked about it," Biden said.

Biden, then a young senator, even encouraged John to gather the courage to speak to Cindy.

"I said, 'Go up and meet her,' and he wouldn't do it. So I went up and I introduced them. They ended up getting married. We were friends," Biden added.

When O'Brien asked if Biden had "done a lot of matchmaking" in his life, the president said, "No, but John would've done it for me."

Related: How President Biden's Mother Encouraged Him to Be Obama’s Running Mate: 'He Says He Needs You'

Biden added that he was the one who encouraged a younger McCain, then a war hero, to eventually run for office.

"I'm the one that talked him into running for office," Biden said. "I knew he wasn't going to run as a Democrat. Anyway, he ended up running and we would argue like hell. I mean, hammer and tong, like two brothers, but then that was it."

Despite their differing party affiliations, Biden and McCain remained close friends throughout their times in the senate and even as McCain became the Republican presidential nominee.

John died in August 2018 from an aggressive form of brain cancer. Cindy, herself a lifelong Republican who broke with her party to endorse Biden, was appointed by the president in 2021 to serve as the Permanent Representative of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations Agencies in Rome.

In 2022, she accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Biden on behalf of her late husband.

The full presidential interview airs Dec. 20 at 8 a.m. EST on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio (channel 104), and will be available on the SiriusXM app or wherever you get your podcasts.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.