Vice President Joe Biden said he and GOP Arizona Sen. John McCain may “fight like hell,” but that hasn’t stopped them from developing a strong bond while working together over the years.
Biden came to Capitol Hill Wednesday to preside over the upper chamber one last time, allowing members on both sides of the aisle to pay tribute to his work. McCain said they’ve been friends for nearly four decades, tracing all the way back to when McCain served as a Navy Senate liaison who “used to carry your (Biden’s) bags on overseas trips.”
Biden said he doesn’t recall McCain carrying his luggage, but does have fond memories of traveling with the him overseas.
“He never carried my bags, but I’ll tell you what, he did advance everything I did, every foreign trip I made when I was a young senator for the first four years, I traveled with John, and that’s not a joke,” he told reporters. “I was meeting with Karamanlis and he’s on top of a cement table dancing with my wife – so that part’s true.”
Biden said while they may butt heads on policy issues on occasion, he has a deep trust in the senator.
“John McCain, the thing about John — John and I fight like hell — but I know, and I’ve said this before, if I got up, John knows, if at two o’clock in the morning he gave me a call and said, ‘I can’t tell you why, but you’ve got to get in a plane and fly to such and such a place,’ I’d get in a plane and go — and he’d do it for me too, without asking any questions,” he said.
McCain had similar sentiments, saying not all of the lawmakers he dealt with as a Senate liaison were as humble as Biden.
“He was fair and courteous to everyone, even people who didn’t always deserve it,” he said on the Senate floor. “He was always an example of how a powerful person with character and class treats anyone in a subordinate position. He treats them with humility, as god’s children, with dignity equal to his own.”
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