Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, says he’s hopeful that Republicans and Democrats alike will take inspiration from Sen. John McCain’s life as they grapple with contentious political issues like immigration reform. The Arizona senator died at his home on Saturday at the age of 81.
“I can tell you there are possibilities, glimmers of hope within the Senate now. I’m just hoping that both sides of the aisle will take inspiration from John’s life and message,” Durbin told “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Durbin said McCain’s work on immigration reform was not an “easy issue for anybody, certainly not a conservative Republican from Arizona.”
McCain, often deviating from his own party, was supported many bipartisan efforts in Congress to improve border security and reform the U.S. immigration system. Congress has been at an impasse on immigration for years, most recently following President Trump’s decision to roll back the Obama-era Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last year.
Durbin recalled working with McCain in the so-called “gang of eight,” a bipartisan group of senators who tried to reach a compromise on immigration back in 2013.
“We spent six months together negotiating a bipartisan comprehensive bill. Four Democrats, four Republicans. John was our leader and we knew with him in charge we were going to finish the job right,” Durbin described. While those efforts ultimately failed in the House, Durbin said that McCain told him privately that Republicans need to “look to the future.”
“‘This is a very diverse nation, if the Republican Party is going to have a future, especially in places like the southwest of our nation, we better be attentive to the needs of immigration,” Durbin paraphrased McCain as saying. “Sure, we need border security and we don’t want dangerous people in the United States but let’s have a sensible and rational plan instead of this mess of laws we have on immigration.”
Durbin said that he will always remember McCain legacy for having a voice of “clarity and vision and courage.” He noted McCain’s “moments of uncommon decency” which he said were “unfortunately in short supply” in Washington.
“He was widely respected, but he knew what the goal was. The goal was to make this a better nation,” said Durbin.
When asked about President Trump’s absence at an upcoming tribute for McCain, Durbin said that Mr. Trump disrespected McCain’s military service in “a moment I’ll never forget,” referring to comments Mr. Trump made in 2015 about McCain’s captivity in Vietnam.
“John handled it with such class. He could have roared back at this president and turn the veterans of the United States against the president, but he was very quiet about it,” Durbin recalled. “And I think he knew that the enduring legacy of his service to our country, along with so many other veterans, was going to prevail over those harsh and nasty words by President Trump.”
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