-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I will take off where Senator Hoeven left off.
Listening to Senator Hoeven talk, I was thinking, what are we going to do--John and me--without Rob here to give us grief about our joint events that we do between Fargo, ND, and Moorhead? Several times, we have told Rob that we were heading out to do some esoteric event together, and he would give us a lot of grief. But then we would always send him pictures of the event to verify that this actually happened, and we had a lot of fun doing that.
I was actually thinking as I heard our colleagues talk about how Rob always teaches. This is something John mentioned. He always passes on the torch. My favorite example of that--and you are going to remember this story, Rob--was when my daughter started college, and Senator Portman was going to speak at the college because his son was there, and he figured out that she was there, and he personally invited her to his talk at a residential college. She was a brandnew freshman. She went in there and sat down. She told me how nervous she was.
Two hours later, she comes back and calls me. Rob had spoken in his typical way, in a very, very authoritative manner but in a very nice way--maybe a little critical of the then-President, President Obama, where he didn't agree with him. My daughter, a freshman in college, calls me and says: Mom, you know, Senator Portman said this. Why didn't President Obama do this? Why did this happen that way?
I said: Honey--I explained everything, and I said: Abigail, you have lived with me for 18 years, and I would hope that you would give some credence to what I said. You have been with Rob Portman for an hour and a half.
She said: But Mom--I will never forget this--Senator Portman is really distinguished, Mom. Senator Portman has a lot of dignity, Mom.
Anyway, this was a family story for a long period of time, and I think part of that was he was able to reach out to students at a school, able to make his case, make the world bigger for my daughter in that way, just as he has made the world bigger for all of us.
For me, it started with our work on human trafficking under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. It extended into, I remember, the work on the USMCA. There was a moment where we feared Canada was not going to be with us and it was just going to be USMA, and the head of the Canadian Inter-Parliamentary Group reached out to Rob and many other Senators. But Rob was incredibly helpful in working with the previous administration to work out some details and get that done.
You mentioned in your speech, Rob, fentanyl and our work together on that. You have just been tremendous in understanding that there are two sides of this: prosecution, going after the bad guys and doing everything we can to keep drugs out of the hands of people who don't deserve to get addicted to them, but also the treatment and the--what we did, along with Sheldon Whitehouse and, way back then, Kelly Ayotte and many others, with the First Step Act and your understanding of the need to work on addiction.
For me, lastly, I will just say there is no better sign that you were someone, as Senator Blunt was saying, who wasn't just kind of ending your time with doing nothing--far from it. There is everything from the infrastructure bill--I see Senator Sinema here--to the work you have done with so many.
For me, it was your devotion to Ukraine. People who will never know your name, who will never know how many times you went there to stand up for the people of their country against the inhuman barbarism of Vladimir Putin--I remember standing with you at that mass grave, at those burned-out apartment buildings, and the way you were able to make the case, working with the State Department, for what the people of Ukraine needed and what would work and the thoughtful and considerate way that people at our Embassy--all the work that they did. I remember the joy we took in finding out that one of the top names that week for new babies in Ukraine was HIMARS and the smile on your face.
Rob, we are going to miss you so much, but just as John said, I have a feeling that this is not your last act and that, along with Jane and your wonderful family, there will be much more to come.
Thank you, Senator Portman.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source