Vice President Biden and I have known each other for a lot of years now.

More than 40, if you're counting.

We knew each other back when we were young and handsome and smarter than everyone else,

but we're too modest to say so.

We served in this Senate together for over 20 years during some eventful times

as we passed from young men to the fossils who appeared before you this evening.

We didn't always agree on the issues we often argued sometimes passionately,

but we believed in each other's patriotism and the sincerity of each other's convictions.

We believed in the institution we were privileged to serve in.

We believed in our mutual responsibility to help make the place work and to cooperate

in finding solutions to our country's problems.

We believed in our country and in our country's indispensability to international peace and stability

and to the progress of humanity.

That was the late Senator John McCain on October 16, 2017, speaking about his old friend, Joe Biden.

Biden had introduced him that day for a ceremony awarding McCain the Liberty Medal

for his lifetime of sacrifice and service to his country.

At the time, McCain was on his last legs.

He had been diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life the following summer.

But his words about Biden and their decades-long friendship leap out as though from another era.

A time when political leaders from across the aisle really did respect each other

and really did reach out to forge bipartisan compromises for the good of the country.

We'll look back at the career of John McCain and the values he embodied with his long-time aid

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