[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 144 (Tuesday, August 28, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5962-S5963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING JOHN McCAIN

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this is a sad time for the Senate and 
our Nation. With the passing of John McCain, our country lost a legend, 
and this Senate has lost a towering figure. I have lost a friend. 
America owes John McCain and his family our gratitude and respect for 
his courage and sacrifice and for the trials he endured to serve the 
Nation he loved.
  John McCain entered this world with big shoes to fill. His father and 
grandfather were four-star admirals in the U.S. Navy. John McCain met 
and exceeded his family legacy.
  I first met him 35 years ago, in 1982. We were brand-new freshmen 
Congressmen elected to the U.S. House. I spotted him on the other side 
of the floor in the Senate and, of course, I knew instantly who he was 
and worked up the courage to go over and introduce myself. Then, I 
asked him a favor.

  I said: John, would you consider doing a cable TV show that I could 
send back to my Central Illinois district?
  He said: Sure, I would be glad to.
  I thought: That is amazing--a Democratic Congressman asking a new 
Republican Congressman to help him back in his district, and John 
McCain said yes.
  It was the beginning of a friendship. That cable show wasn't shown 
beyond Central Illinois, but I still remember it and still thank John 
for his act of kindness. It was my first exposure to a unique style of 
communication that America would come to know as the ``Straight Talk 
Express.'' Sitting for that interview is a typically generous John 
McCain act, for which I am still grateful.
  There is an old joke about an Irishman who walked past a brawl and 
said: Is this a private fight or can anyone get into it?
  I think that man's name may have been McCain. Everyone who knew or 
served with John for any period of time got crosswise with him. I can 
remember there, in the well of the Senate, John McCain walking up to 
me, getting within an inch of my face and chewing me out about some 
article that he had read in the Chicago Tribune. He was so mad he was 
about to explode, and he wheeled around and walked away.
  I thought: What did I say? I can't even remember the article.
  I raced back to look up the Chicago Tribune article he referred to 
and still couldn't understand his anger, and I thought: How am I going 
to make amends with John. He has been my friend for so long.
  The next day he came up to me, and I got ready for the second round. 
He put his arm around me and said: It wasn't that bad after all. We are 
still friends.
  That was typical John McCain--a volcanic temper but an embracing, 
loving approach when it came to friendship. That was John. He was 
passionate in his beliefs, but he was not a man to hold grudges. He 
understood that two people can disagree on issues today, and still both 
love this country and work together tomorrow.
  Occasionally, he would invite you on a trip. Be careful. I said yes 
several times. A John McCain trip over a weekend was something you 
don't soon forget. If there is anybody out there who thinks that 
Senators with John McCain were sitting poolside drinking these mixed 
drinks with paper umbrellas, they have it all wrong. John McCain's 
trips on the weekend were more like Bataan death marches. From the 
minute you got on that plane until you got back to Washington, it was a 
nonstop schedule. Everything had to be done. We had to see three 
countries, not two, and we had to get it done and get back to 
Washington. You learned so much.
  I went to Ukraine with John. I remember walking the streets of Kiev 
in Ukraine. People were coming up to John--people who remembered that 
he showed up in the Maidan Square when the revolution was underway and 
spoke for those who were defying Moscow--and they still remembered John 
McCain and couldn't wait to come up and say hello and thank him. It was 
that way in so many places of the world. I was lucky to be there. I was 
lucky to be a part of it, lucky to see history unfold, and lucky to 
count John as a friend.
  John and I had our disagreements. In fact, there was one solid year 
when we barely spoke. At the end of that year, I found an excuse to 
walk over to his office to see him on some issue. I remember that he 
stood up and greeted me. He shook my hand. He looked me in the eye and 
said: I am glad this is over between us.
  So was I. It was one of the happier days I served in the Senate.
  His ability to see beyond party labels was one of the qualities that 
so many of us loved and admired about him. It was a lesson he learned 
from his family. It is a truth, I imagine, that he came to see even 
more clearly during the 5\1/2\ torturous years--two of them in solitary 
confinement--that he spent as a prisoner of war in that hellish place 
known as the Hanoi Hilton.
  We are stronger together than we are divided. John McCain knew that. 
His entire life was a testimony to that powerful truth. It is why, as a 
prisoner of war, John McCain refused offers of release. He knew what 
the rules were. The rules were ``first in, first out.'' He was not the 
first in. He just happened

[[Page S5963]]

to be the son of an admiral, and the North Vietnamese were going to 
make him a symbol and release him. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't 
accept it. His body was broken by the torture and the plane crash, but 
he stayed in that cell and waited his turn, until the moment came when 
he could leave with his head up.
  John didn't want to be defined as a professional prisoner of war. I 
love the story about a party that was given for John and his fellow 
captives after they got home. One young man was telling the story of 
his confinement in some detail when he happened to look over and see 
John McCain. He suddenly felt conspicuous and said to John: I shouldn't 
be going on about my time as a prisoner of war. I was there for 6 
weeks, and you were there for 5\1/2\ years.
  With typical John McCain humor and wit, John replied: Oh, no, go 
right ahead. The first 6 weeks were the toughest.
  Like Abraham Lincoln, John McCain knew that laughter helped to make 
the unbearable bearable, and like President Lincoln, he was secure 
enough in his own reputation and in his own achievements to be modest.
  John endured the hell of the Hanoi Hilton more than many. He served 
in the Senate longer than many. He leaves his mark on this body and our 
Nation.
  When the issue of torture and detention was front and center before 
the American people, when we were trying to decide what were the 
boundaries for this democracy, faced with the threat of terrorism, 
there was one voice in the Senate who was credible. It was John McCain.
  I made speech after speech on the subject, but when John McCain got 
up and spoke about the issue of torture, there was silence on the floor 
of the Senate as we listened carefully. He proposed a resolution 
establishing humane standards of treatment, realizing the humanity we 
showed toward our prisoners is the same humanity we expected if 
Americans were taken prisoner. His effort was enacted by the Senate 
with over 90 votes, a strong bipartisan rollcall.
  John McCain, more than anything, was a champion of the U.S. 
military--the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces. They never 
had a better friend. Our Nation's veterans and their families never had 
a stronger ally. He was a leader in the fight to curb the influence of 
special interests in politics and to make our government truly a 
government of, by, and for the people.
  Russ Feingold and John McCain moved us toward what America is longing 
for--putting the special interests behind us, putting the people first, 
ending soft money.
  He treasured our heritage as a nation of immigrants. I have such 
profound respect for John McCain's efforts to reach across the aisle 
and try to find solutions for America's broken immigration system. Even 
as his own party railed against him, we spent almost a year together--
eight Senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, led by John 
McCain--to write a comprehensive immigration reform bill. It was one of 
my proudest moments in the Senate. It was why I ran for the Senate. It 
was what John McCain told us over and over was to be our mission in 
life as Senators: To solve the problems facing America and not to be 
worried about taking some heat.
  He took a lot of heat as a Republican who stepped up and offered a 
real solution to our comprehensive immigration challenge. We put 
together a bill over the course of a year. I think it was an 
extraordinary effort. We all had to compromise. John compromised and I 
compromised, but we ended up with a bipartisan bill that passed 
overwhelmingly on the floor of the Senate.
  There hasn't been another moment like that in the time I have been 
here, and John led the way. He took a lot of grief for it. His poll 
numbers were not that good, particularly among the most conservative 
Republicans, but John knew we had a problem to solve, and he stepped 
out and did it. I was honored to be a part of the small group that 
worked night after night, week after week to put that effort together.
  Of course, what I remember now more than anything is that middle-of-
the-night vote a little over a year ago. He walked through that door, 
just having spoken on the telephone with President Trump, and he came 
to the well of the Senate and stood right next to that table. Because 
he had limited motion in his arm because of that plane crash and 
torture in Vietnam, he barely lifted his right arm and pushed his thumb 
down and said no. With that ``no'' vote, he preserved health insurance 
for millions of Americans, and he invoked the ire of conservative 
Republicans, who will never forgive him for that moment. It was one of 
the proudest, most courageous votes and moments in the history of the 
Senate. I was honored to be here and had a chance to thank him 
personally that night.
  I also remember when he came to the floor and spoke at that desk, 
which is now bearing the vase of roses, a tribute to John McCain, and 
reminded all of us why we run for this office. Sure, it is a great 
title and a lot of Americans never get close to a title like U.S. 
Senator, but to John McCain and to many of us, it is much more. It is 
not only a great honor. It is a great challenge for us to do something 
with this title to solve the problems that face this country.
  I didn't always agree with John, but I always respected the fact that 
he wanted the Senate to be an institution that was serving the people 
in this country and solving the problems we face.
  John was principled and courageous time and again. There were times 
when we had our differences. I can recall when he came to Illinois to 
campaign against me. He was campaigning on behalf of a State 
Representative in Illinois named Jim Durkin--not Durbin, but Durkin--
who had been John's supporter for President in the State of Illinois. 
John returned the favor by campaigning for Jim Durkin against me. You 
might wonder, in this world of politics, how you react to a person who 
is trying to take your job away, which John was doing. I understood it. 
I expected it. Jim Durkin was loyal to John McCain, and John McCain was 
loyal to him and came in and campaigned for him.
  After the election was over, the people of Illinois decided I should 
be the Senator. It didn't deter John McCain one bit from working with 
me from that point forward.
  There is an empty space in this Chamber without John McCain. There is 
an empty space in America without his spirit. He will be missed, but he 
certainly will never be forgotten. I endorse the proposal to rename the 
Russell Senate Office Building in honor of Lieutenant Commander and 
Senator John McCain. Like Senator Schumer, I hope that decades from 
now, children who are visitors to the Capitol grounds will ask: Who was 
this McCain they named the building after? They will discover he was a 
man worthy of our respect, a man who in his heart was a public servant, 
a man who was an American hero.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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