WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) delivered remarks on the Senate floor in memory of Senator John McCain who passed away Saturday at the age of 81. 

“Now, as a gesture of our nation’s gratitude for the patriotic path he blazed, Senator McCain will lie in state in the Capitol, draped in the flag that he spent his life serving. John McCain was a hero in the flesh, right here in this century, and I feel blessed for having known him.” 

Transcript of his remarks can be found below and a video can be found here.

“Today I want to join my colleague from Minnesota and other senators in talking about our colleague, an American icon, who played an outsized role in our nation’s great story. Navy Captain, Congressman, and U.S. Senator, John McCain was first and foremost a patriot. Throughout his whole life—and very prolific life—he lived the motto of his 2008 presidential campaign, which was simply, ‘Country first.’ 

“I had the privilege of helping Senator McCain during that 2008 campaign. I was in the private sector then, and I took time off to spend about six weeks with him traveling around the country. I was on the campaign trail with a group of his loyal friends, including the first friend, Lindsey Graham. I had known John for many years, but you really get to know somebody in a different way during the intensity and pressure of a national campaign. I played the role of his opponent, then-Senator Barack Obama, to prepare him for his debates. I took that role very seriously, maybe too seriously on occasion. It was my job to get under his skin and prepare him well for the debates, and I did it. Many of my colleagues will tell you he was a fighter and a tough competitor and did not mince words. I was on the other end of that after some spirited debates we had. I was very glad that in the real world I was actually on his side. Needless to say he was not happy with me during those debate sessions. I think Cindy McCain still hasn’t forgiven me for some of the things I said during the debate preparation when I was playing the role of then-Senator Obama. Even two years later, after I was first elected and joined him here in the United States Senate, he would introduce me to the reporters in the hall and say, ‘that’s the jerk that played Obama.’ 

“The John McCain that I got to know during the intensity of the campaign was principled. He was patriotic and he was passionate and his heart was in the right place. He also had a sense of humor that was intact. I remember when a bad poll would come out, he would gather us around and say, ‘don’t worry, it’s always darkest before it’s pitch black.’ 

“One of the memories I will never forget was during a debate preparation in a theater at the Morgan Library in New York City. At start of the debate practice I was backstage behind a curtain because I wanted it to be realistic where I would be coming out from behind the curtain and up to the podium, just as you would do in a presidential debate. It was in late September, 2008. I think it was September 24, 2008, just as the financial crisis was hitting hard. It’s difficult to go back to that moment today, but the mindset at the time was that we were in a true crisis. The stock market had crashed. The country was mired in financial turmoil. And so I stood there behind the curtain getting ready to come out. John McCain and two of his top campaign advisors were on stage getting into their own debate, and their debate was about whether or not to suspend the campaign, postpone the first debate that was scheduled to occur just a few days later, and fly back to Washington, D.C., to work out a legislative solution to bolster the shaky financial system. I remember one of the advisors raised the concern that suspending the campaign would hurt them politically. They just couldn’t do it. By the way, that was a point of view that was shared by pretty much every political pundit, and probably would be today. I remember John McCain pushing back. He said, ‘It’s the right thing to do. If we don’t fix this, there won’t be a country left to govern.’ He suspended his campaign and returned to Washington to jump into the arena, like his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, and to try to fix things. John McCain was less worried about the political fallout than he was about what was at stake for our great country. Country first. 

“He didn’t win that campaign, but I think he taught all of us a lesson about how to lose. He gave a generous concession speech that put country first. He was someone a lot of us looked to for counsel and worked with on many issues, often national security issues. In my case, he was an expert. I worked with him on issues like Ukraine, but also on other matters. Just in the last year he played a key role in helping us enact reforms here in the United States Senate that are making a real difference right now in combating online sex trafficking. This was through legislation that I introduced called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA. And this SESTA legislation was something he was very involved with. Cindy McCain has a long history in this area. She’s a real expert on it and she was instrumental in the legislation, in these reforms, as was the McCain Institute. John had a passion for it. He was the first Republican cosponsor of the bill and a passionate advocate. He believed in his heart that the sale of women and children online was just wrong and it should never happen, certainly not in this country, in this century. About six months ago, this legislation, the SESTA bill was about to be voted on, and after getting permission from my Democratic co-author, Senator Richard Blumenthal, who agreed with me, I approached John McCain, and I asked him if we could name this anti-sex trafficking legislation ‘The McCain Bill,’ after him and after Cindy and all the work he had done and his passion for it. His response was immediate and classic McCain. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t be right. I strongly support the legislation, but you all did the work. It isn’t about me. It’s about getting this done for those women and those children.’ Country first. 

“For me, this chamber is never going to be the same place without him. It’s as simple as that. Lindsey Graham said that well earlier. And, for me, this place, the Senate, and our country for that matter, is better off because of him. He dedicated his life to those liberties we enjoy as Americans, and he took it upon himself to defend and represent them and try to spread them around the globe. He joined the U.S. Navy to protect our country, spent more than five years as a prisoner of war, stubbornly patriotic to his own detriment, and served in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate representing not just his Arizona constituents, which he did well, but, as he viewed it, the entire country. Country first. 

“Now, as a gesture of our nation’s gratitude for the patriotic path he blazed, Senator McCain will lie in state in the Capitol, draped in the flag that he spent his life serving. John McCain was a hero in the flesh, right here in this century, and I feel blessed for having known him. The last conversation I remember having with John was right out here in the anteroom off the Senate floor. It was during his very last days here. He was in a wheelchair. He had a brace on his leg necessary because of the chemotherapy, and his voice was faltering. We sat and we talked first about the SESTA legislation and Cindy’s role. John always had a funny line, in this case he joked saying, ‘passing that legislation will save my marriage.’ Then he started talking about his kids. He went into detail about what they were doing, especially his sons in the military and what they were accomplishing and his daughter Meghan and her work in the media world and how proud he was of them. His voice strengthened and his eyes shown with pride as he talked about each of them. I muttered something about that being another part of his legacy, and he gave me that crooked smile. Family and country first. 

“My wife, Jane, and I send our condolences to John’s amazing wife, Cindy, to his seven proud sons and daughter, and to the entire McCain family.  

“Godspeed, John McCain.”

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