[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 143 (Monday, August 27, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5943-S5944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING JOHN McCAIN

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, on Saturday, August 25, 2018, 9 years 
to the day since the death of his friend Senator Kennedy, our friend 
and colleague Senator John S. McCain passed away. Knowing his prognosis 
prepared us for the inevitable, but it has not softened the blow. We 
all feel a great and inexpressible loss. I know I do. I also feel lucky 
that I was able to call this great man a friend.
  Today, I wish to share a few reflections, unorganized and incomplete 
though they may be. I suspect I will have more to say about Senator 
McCain with the benefit of a few days' time.
  Senator McCain and I didn't get along very well at first. He was 
close to my mentor in the Senate, Ted Kennedy, but not so with me. I 
never served with Senator McCain on any committee, where we get to know 
other Senators up close.
  Before our friendship, my closest brush with him was over a comment 
he made during a debate on defense policy when he said that Long Island 
was ``regrettably part of the United States.'' I blasted John's 
pejorative, which, of course, prompted him to reply from the Senate 
floor:

       I'm sorry there's at least one of my colleagues that can't 
     take a joke. I apologize if I offended him and hope that 
     someday he will have a sense of humor.

  Like many, I was a victim of Senator McCain's acerbic wit.
  Things began to defrost when we worked together during the Gang of 14 
to avoid a change in the Senate rules during the Bush administration, 
and a real tight and lasting friendship emerged from our collaboration 
on immigration reform.
  We worked in close quarters for nearly a year--hour after hour, day 
after day, week after week--fine-tuning the only piece of major 
immigration reform to pass this Chamber in decades. We visited the 
southern border together to assess the gaps in our security up close. 
We were doing what the Senate was supposed to do--grappling with the 
biggest challenges, working in a bipartisan way to find solutions, 
overcoming obstacles that have so long bedeviled immigration reform and 
continue to stymie progress today. We couldn't have done it without 
John McCain.

  In recent days, many have reflected on his Presidential campaigns and 
his military service, and rightly so. He was also a natural legislator, 
able to seek common ground and having a sense of where to go. He knew 
when to give a little, and he knew when not to. He had deep principles, 
but he also knew how to craft a product that could actually pass, and 
the bill did, in the Senate, with large numbers of supporters from both 
parties. Had we passed immigration reform then, had the House done what 
the Senate did under John's leadership, we wouldn't be quarreling about 
immigration now, and our country would be a better, stronger, and more 
unified place.
  We became so close over that year that John McCain started treating 
my staff like they were his own, and me the same. We spoke so 
frequently that I knew John McCain's cell number by heart, and I 
mistakenly repeated it during an interview when a reporter asked me how 
close we were. They had to edit it out to protect John's privacy.
  I can truly say that the times we spent authorizing and passing 
immigration reform were some of the proudest days in politics for me 
and the rest of the Gang of 8, in no small part because the success was 
shared with one great legislative leader, John McCain. He was so many 
things to so many people, a fierce friend to those who were lucky 
enough to have earned his friendship--you had to earn his friendship--
and a real thorn in the side of those who earned his scorn. Many know 
that.
  He was an unofficial ambassador for the United States, a comfort to 
our allies, and an unabashed champion for Western values. He was 
unafraid to take on Presidents. He was unafraid to take on his own 
party. He was equally parts funny and furious, foulmouthed and 
statesmanlike. He could put the ``temper'' in temperament. He was a 
brave and honest man. He was a patriot. He was all those things 
throughout his life, usually more than one at once, until his very last 
days.
  Remarking on the character of America, Senator McCain said we live in 
a ``big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, restless, striving, daring, 
brave, good and magnificent country.'' Truer words could not be said 
about the man himself--big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, 
restless, striving, daring, brave, good, and magnificent.
  As you go through life, you meet a few truly great people. John 
McCain was one of them. His dedication to his country and to the men 
and women who serve and protect it was unsurpassed. Even in his last 
weeks, he was calling me every few days to make sure our Defense 
authorization bill was done and done right--not for him, not for his 
glory but because he cared about men and women who serve in our Armed 
Forces so deeply. His life is a story of American heroism personified, 
but maybe, most of all, he was a truth teller.
  Perhaps it is a reflection of our politics that a man can be so well 
regarded for simply telling the truth as he saw it, or, maybe, 
recognizing the demands and failings of our politics, it is more of a 
reflection on the man that four decades of public life could not warp 
or dim his fidelity to the unvarnished truth.
  I will miss him dearly. In the past year of his illness, during 
moments of doubt about the direction of our country, I found myself 
thinking about what John McCain would do or what he would say if he 
were here.
  Truth be told, there is nothing I could say that could possibly add 
or detract from Senator McCain's illustrious career. There is nothing 
any of us have done that compares to the sacrifice he made in a 
cellblock half a world away and half a lifetime ago--a sacrifice he 
made over and over for the country he loved and the principles he 
advanced.
  So that generations will study his example, I have proposed we rename 
the Russell Senate Office Building, one of only three Senate office 
buildings, after John McCain. It would be a fitting tribute to a man 
who considered his service in the Senate--headquartered in the Russell 
Building, where his beloved Armed Services Committee also resides--the 
most significant in his distinguished career. The man whose name he 
would replace, Senator Richard Russell, a towering figure in the Senate 
of his day, was nonetheless an avowed opponent of civil rights and the 
architect of the Southern filibuster that long delayed its passage.
  It is time that we recognize that as times change, so do our heroes. 
I will be introducing a resolution with Senator Flake to change the 
name of the Russell Building to the McCain Building. I hope my 
colleagues will cosponsor and support the resolution. It need not be 
the only way we honor Senator McCain. We can honor him by trying to 
carry out the principles he lived by. We can try, as he did, to put 
country before party. We can try, as he always did, to speak truth to 
power. We can try, as he summoned us to try, to restore the Senate to 
its rightful place in our national political life.
  Up until the very end, John McCain still believed the Senate was 
capable of solving our country's greatest challenges. He believed that 
our arcane rules and procedures, designed to frustrate one-party rule, 
were an antidote to the organization of our politics. At the very 
least, he believed in the Senate's ability to make progress, to set

[[Page S5944]]

aside, for a moment, our party affiliations, political interests, and 
personal ambitions in the service of a larger cause, because that is 
what he did. For all his cynicism, he still believed the Senate could 
reach that higher calling.
  Deep in the middle of his final speech on the Senate floor were these 
words: ``I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to 
cooperate, on our dependence on each other, learn how to trust each 
other again, and by doing so, better serve the people who elected us.''
  If we are to truly honor the life and the service of John McCain, let 
us do that. Let us do that.
  John McCain put out a few final words. Today I think some of his 
staffers put them out. I would like to read just two paragraphs of that 
and then ask unanimous consent that they be put in the Record:

       I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on 
     earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of 
     my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had 
     experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten 
     satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I 
     have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good 
     times or bad times, for the best of anyone else's.

  Finally, he concluded with this:

       Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe 
     always in the promise and greatness of America, because 
     nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never 
     surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.
       Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless 
     America.

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for 
     sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,
       Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the 
     rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office 
     has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country 
     honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for 
     America will be weighed favorably against them.
       I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on 
     earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of 
     my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had 
     experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten 
     satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I 
     have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good 
     or bad times, for the best day of anyone else's.
       I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man 
     ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of 
     than I am of mine. And I owe it to America.
       To be connected to America's causes--liberty, equal 
     justice, respect for the dignity of all people--brings 
     happiness more sublime than life's fleeting pleasures. Our 
     identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but 
     enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.
       `Fellow Americans'--that association has meant more to me 
     than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are 
     citizens of the world's greatest republic, a nation of 
     ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing 
     to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home 
     and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from 
     tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have 
     acquired great wealth and power in the process.
       We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with 
     tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and 
     violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when 
     we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we 
     doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be 
     the great force for change they have always been.
       We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, 
     vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes 
     even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we 
     have always had so much more in common with each other than 
     in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other 
     the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country 
     we will get through these challenging times. We will come 
     through them stronger than before. We always do.
       Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the 
     election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with 
     the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully 
     that evening.
       I feel it powerfully still.
       Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe 
     always in the promise and greatness of America, because 
     nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never 
     surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.
       Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless 
     America.

  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield the floor.

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