Centered: Joe Lieberman

[ominous music] An election in turmoil.

A presidency in the balance.

[chanting] Sore-loser-man!

Al Gore concede!

Make every vote count!

Jail to the thief!

Jail to the thief!

The idea that we've gone from 2000 to what we did in 2020 is mind boggling.

We need back up.

We've lost the line!

We've lost the line!

In politics today, it's easier to make enemies than make allies.

It's time to evacuate so we can secure the members on the other side.

Copy.

I think Joe was always focused on making allies.

I'm fed up with the partisanship and the bitterness in our politics.

There's too much personal hatred.

It was about crossing that aisle, trying to build consensus.

He was principled but pragmatic.

I have been a bipartisan centrist really, throughout my career.

Centrism meaning not that you're always moderate, but you're always trying to solve problems and compromise.

It's important to be open to civilized, respectful debate with people, to try to find common ground and get something done.

Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president of the United States, is about to formally introduce his running mate.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next vice president of the United States of America, Joe Lieberman.

[crowd chants] Joe!, Joe!, Joe!

In America, every time a barrier is broken, the doors of opportunity go wider, for every single one of us.

In my life, I've seen the goodness of this great country through many sets of eyes.

Hadassah, I am so fortunate to have you by my side on this journey.

That miraculous journey begins here and now.

Only in America.

Thank you.

My religious upbringing is one of the reasons I ended up going into public service.

I'm a Jewish kid from Connecticut, a wonderful family, neither of whose parents went to college.

My mother was raised in a very religious Jewish family.

There was always religion in the house, being kosher, keeping the Sabbath.

But there were lots of rules about kindness and being honest and reaching out to people who were not as fortunate.

The people of Connecticut join in prayers of Thanksgiving.

In 1954, I was 12 years old.

A man named Abraham Ribicoff is elected Governor of Connecticut.

And there's a lot of excitement around my house because he's Jewish.

I got the opportunity to work with him, and he became a mentor for me.

Incidentally, he was a centrist.

He said, we can fight each other, Republicans and Democrats and get nothing done.

Or we can choose the integrity of compromise, and we get something done for the people of Connecticut.

And so, my fellow Americans.

[Lieberman]: And then came Kennedy.

Ask, not what your country can do for you.

Ask what you can do for your country.

Kennedy was transformational for a lot of people of my generation, bringing us into public service.

[singing] I'm in Washington the summer of 1963, I have a dream today.

Lieberman: I was at the Lincoln Memorial when Doctor King gave the I Have a Dream speech.

Amazing.

[singing] We shall overcome We're all created by the same father creator that makes us related in that way.

And it means that we're all to the same equal rights from the state.

After the March on Washington, Joe Lieberman goes to Mississippi to help register blacks to vote.

I got active in the civil rights movement, actually, till the end of my high school years and into college.

I get the chance to go to Yale.

Transforms my life, raises my expectations about what I can achieve.

I always liked writing.

I became the editor of the Yale Daily News.

It seemed to me that that was the most significant organization on campus.

It was a wonderful experience.

Great to be back in the building.

Lovely to have you.

Evan: This has been a... Lieberman: I spent a lot of time here Ah, look at that.

Yeah Wow.

A lot of memories.

This is from the United Press from Dallas.

President Kennedy and Governor John Connolly have been cut down by assassin's bullets in downtown Dallas.

They were riding on an automobile.

This is the day that President Kennedy was assassinated.

It was really traumatic for me.

I actually got down on my knees and I prayed that he not die.

That is the editorial I wrote that day.

The senseless assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy strikes so deep into us, with grief that it is impossible to comprehend.

What a day.

I met Betty, during the year I worked as a summer intern for Abe Ribicoff.

So that led to marriage, halfway through my first year at Yale Law School.

Matt was born in 1967 and then Becca in February of 69.

I settled in New Haven, and then at the unbelievably young age of 27, I run for state senator against the incumbent.

It was irrational.

Most of the people in the Democratic Party wouldn't support me.

So I went to the campuses in New Haven and had to get workers.

And I went to Yale Law.

And low and behold, a big, tall, likable guy from Arkansas turns out to be Bill Clinton volunteers.

It was a tense night.

We were ecstatic because I did win.

He took on the establishment in 1970.

You know, when you pulled it off, you really knocked off somebody who was very powerful at that time.

In my career, the biggest risks I took gave me the greatest push forward.

He was considered to be very thoughtful, measured, balanced, whatever a bomb thrower is, he was the opposite.

As we approach 1980, I just assumed I'd run for the State Senate again.

And then, surprisingly, the incumbent congressman in my district announced he was retiring.

So I decided to run, and I got the nomination pretty easily.

And I lost.

So everybody has defeats, and, you know, you have to have the faith to go forward, get up off the ground and try the next thing.

As long as you're alive, you can always make things better.

After I lost Betty and I decided that our marriage wasn't going to work.

The thought of divorce was, to me, a failure.

This was an ethic in my family.

Of course, it all changed.

I was in Riverdale, where I lived, following an earlier divorce, with my son.

I was given his name by this old roommate of mine, and she said this is a good man.

One thing I wanted in a second marriage was somebody whose level of religious observance was close to mine.

I liked him, and I thought, this is interesting because some of the people I had met were not my degree of traditional Judaism.

I was very lucky to have met Hadassah.

We've had wonderful marriage now into our fifth decade together.

They really rebuilt their lives together.

Their relationship was always very much appreciating and valuing every second they had together.

It's time to get tough.

Your Honor.

Joe Lieberman, Attorney General.

In 82, there was a state election.

I looked at being attorney general.

Coming back and winning so strongly was a great turnaround and very exciting for all of us.

I thoroughly enjoyed the six years as Attorney General of Connecticut.

Do you know what it feels like to crash into a brick wall at just five miles an hour?

If your children are not getting their fair share of child support, we can help you too.

You're on the side of justice.

You're on the side of the angels.

Somebody once said to me, when you're a state attorney general, all you do is sue the bastards.

That's the law in plain language.

So by 1987/88, John Droney was the state Democratic chairman and Senator John Kerry, They both tried to get me to run against Lowell Weicker, which I thought was Mission Impossible.

Weicker, until that point, was seen as larger than life and and unassailable because he had a national reputation and he was very well known from the Watergate hearings.

And so he had been in the Senate for a long time.

We started to really attack him, criticize his record.

I support the the invasion of Grenada, the attack on Libya, I support President Reagan for the Persian Gulf involvement.

My opponent opposed all of those.

It was a brutal last two weeks.

I have some projections for the United States Senate, beginning with one, which is probably a great surprise to most people.

It is that Lowell Weicker, the Republican senator from Connecticut, has been defeated by Joseph Lieberman, the Democrat.

But I ended up winning by less than 1% of the vote.

And they promised me in the campaign that if I won one more time they'd let me sing, the last verse of my way.

Are you ready?

[singing] What is a man, what has he got? ...and did it my way Senator Lieberman had a real sense that the people of Connecticut sent him to Washington to do this job, not to fight with the other side, but to work with the other side.

It wasn't about party.

It was about how do we address the issue and help to make a difference for the American people.

Senator Lieberman wanted an outcome.

He believed in compromise.

He believed in finding common ground.

I have been persistently, stubbornly bipartisan.

I just feel that that was always my responsibility to the people who elected me, who are not just Democrats.

When he came to Congress in 1989, he tried to steer a middle path, a bipartisan path, a path that was strong in defense but more liberal on social issues.

I mean, what I really came in focusing on was the environment.

And I worked very hard on the Clean Air Act in 1990, which was a tremendous opportunity for me to watch both parties work together on an important piece of legislation.

And I am now honored to sign this Clean Air Bill into law.

And thank you all who have worked so hard for this day to become possible.

That allowed really, hundreds of thousands of people to live longer than they would have if the air was still getting dirty.

Word that Iraq has invaded neighboring state of Kuwait with fighting reported along the border.

When Saddam Hussein and Iraqi military invaded Kuwait I was the first Senate Democrat to say that if President Bush requested authority to take military action, I would support it.

Iraq will not be permitted to annex Kuwait.

There are times when you have to stand up against an international criminal who is unyielding and that's the case we're facing with Saddam.

The civilized world has often had to meet force with force.

Regretfully, I have concluded that this is such a time.

The fundamental question remains what is our vital interest?

Obviously, the actions of Saddam Hussein were dreadful.

But the question was, was there an alternative?

This was a threat to the stability of the Middle East.

I yield the floor.

And I worked very hard to convince enough Democrats and in the end, [voice from Speaker] Mr.

Lieberman?

Lieberman: Aye The authorization passed.

The yeas are 52 and the nays are 47.

Senate Joint Resolution 2, to authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces, is passed.

[sound of shelling and shooting in the background] Two hours ago, Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.

Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait.

Tonight, the battle has been joined.

The coalition took only 100 hours to destroy the Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

Evil was on the march, and Joe Lieberman stood up with just a handful of Democrats.

And I think that incident set the stage for his entire career for being a different kind of Democrat.

If anybody needs any more proof of why it was important to go to war in the Gulf, to stop Saddam Hussein.

This is it.

All this was unnecessary.

Today, I proudly announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.

In late '91, Bill Clinton calls me, and he says, you remember in 1970 when you ran for state senator and I supported you?

Of course I remember, Governor, he said, and you won, right?

So I did win.

So he says, now, you owe me.

This election is about change.

Change in our party, change in our leadership, change in our nation.

He went on to be really a great president, notwithstanding what he himself would describe as his personal mistakes.

I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Miss Lewinsky.

I'm so devoted to the guy in his presidency, and I like him that I want to believe him.

Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms.

Lewinsky that was not appropriate.

In fact, it was wrong.

He was very, very troubled about this and felt badly for Clinton, but at the same time felt he had to say something.

I said Joey, "What are you going to do?"

I'm going to speak.

We take you live to the floor of the United States Senate, where Connecticut Democrat Senator Joseph Lieberman is commenting on President Clinton.

Such behavior is not just inappropriate.

It is immoral, and it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children.

There was an enormous media focus on it, and there was a backlash within the Democratic Party.

How could I turn on him?

He didn't just break with the party.

He broke silence.

In some ways, he might have been grateful that it was Senator Lieberman and not a less temperate man who delivered the rebuke.

The Following Sunday, I'm at home.

Phone rings.

It's the White House, President Clinton would like to speak to you.

He said I was hurt by your speech, but I agree with everything you said.

I made a terrible mistake.

I'm working very hard to make sure I never do it again.

And I always felt that what he had done as reprehensible, as it was, didn't constitute an impeachable act.

None of us is perfect.

He stumbled and fell, as I said in my speech.

We're all sinners.

I was living my dream, which was to be a U.S.

senator.

Never thought of being on a national ticket.

Now, about whose stock is up and whose is down in Democrat Al Gore's search for a running mate.

Gore is now said to be close to deciding.

Gore's shortlist is actually down to four.

Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, was a model of probity and castigated President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The Gore people said they liked him and we said your goddamn right.

And here's the reasons why.

Because he was he was a decent, honorable man who believed in the things that he believed in and didn't care to say or do things that weren't consistent with his moral beliefs.

Period.

Good evening everyone.

Thanks for being with us tonight.

It is crunch time for Al Gore.

Our house in New Haven was suddenly surrounded by TV satellite trucks.

It was an amazing moment for me and my family.

What kind of advice was your mother giving you on this night?

You know, moms are great.

I love you no matter what happens.

I go to sleep.

And the next morning, I flip on the TV.

Al Gore asked Senator Lieberman to join his presidential ticket.

And that means a Connecticut senator may be headed to the White House.

And I... Hadassah was there, I said, did you hear that?

She said, what?

They're saying that Al chose me.

This was really happening.

I just remember how extraordinary the whole thing was.

It was a spectacular launch, the beginning of a whole chapter in my life that was without precedent.

There are some people who might actually call Al's selection of me an act of chutzpah.

It was a watershed event emotionally, for a lot of Jewish Americans.

Maybe a little seder?

I'm a brother.

And he became them in some way.

I think there was like an intense bonding, particularly remarkable at this moment where we see such evidence of antisemitism in the country and in the world that we just didn't see it.

We just didn't see it.

In a vice presidential campaign.

There's only three moments that matter.

The moment you're announced as the candidate.

My best friend and the love of my life, Joe Lieberman.

The moment you accept the nomination at the convention.

Tonight, I am so proud to stand as your candidate for Vice President of the United States.

And the vice presidential debate.

The candidates are the Republican nominee, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney of Wyoming.

and the Democratic nominee, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

We thought that Dick Cheney would essentially use the opportunity to attack Vice President Gore.

There's just an awful lot of evidence that there has not been any bipartisan leadership out of this administration or out of Al Gore.

Instead, it turned out to be an incredibly thoughtful, policy based conversation between two people who respected and I think, liked each other.

Did Al Gore make promises in 1992?

Absolutely.

Did he deliver?

Big time.

If I may put it that way.

There was a lot of commentary praising, Lieberman and Cheney for the job they did in the debate.

But, you know, any kind of commentary about a vice presidential debate has a half life of about three days.

In the tightest presidential election in 40 years Ralph Nader is wreaking havoc.

You hear reporters say, well, since you can't win, aren't you worried about taking votes from Al Gore?

Gee, I stay up at night sleepless.

worrying about taking votes away.

from Al Gore.

Democrats fear the Green Party candidate could draw enough votes to put Bush over the top.

I want to fight for you.

I thought that we were responding too much to Nader and by moving left and populist, we were going to lose votes that would be greater in number than the ones we would gain.

I thought they were going off track.

You want to know something?

It's Election Day.

We knew going into it that it was going to be very close from all of the polling.

There was a concern about winning the popular vote not the electoral.

So there was that reality that people were dealing with, too.

But there was also the great hope that this was all going to work out.

CNN announces that we call Florida in the Al Gore column.

This is the state that both campaigns desperately wanted to win.

The state with a Republican governor named Bush, the brother of the Republican nominee.

Turns out that Governor Jeb Bush was not his brother's keeper.

The family had been joking seriously, that it could be a cold Thanksgiving.

And the room erupted because everyone had done the electoral math and that was it.

It was done.

It was over.

Oh, the place went crazy.

But, you know, I've been through close elections, so I felt like it was too early.

NBC news is now taking Florida out of Vice President Gore's column and putting it back in the too close to call column.

What is going on in the Sunshine State?

Well, what's going on in the Sunshine State is the closest election anybody has ever seen.

Florida could go either way at this point.

It's getting late.

Okay.

And now they're basically declaring that Bush has won.

The United States has a new president.

He's the Texas Governor George Walker Bush.

You can't make this up.

I mean, this does not happen in America, right?

Where you you believe you're President of the United States, and Vice President of the United States, and then the whole bottom falls out.

It's like.

Are you kidding me?

Al called Governor Bush and conceded.

I said, wow, I'm amazed at that.

I mean, I've been through close elections.

There's so much on the line here.

Don't you think we should wait?

All right.

We're officially saying that Florida is too close to call.

So we take Florida away from, George W. Bush.

That means he is short of the 270 electoral votes that he needs to win.

The Vice President has recalled the Governor and retracted his concession.

He calls the Governor.

Hello, Governor.

How are you Well, I'm calling to take back what I said earlier.

The media says it's too close to call.

There was silence.

And then Al says, I don't care what your little brother says.

My people tell me it's too close to call.

We've wobbled some in Florida.

First called it for Gore.

Pulled it back and called it for Bush.

Had to pull it back.

Embarrassing situation.

You bet.

Whatever happens, whoever wins tomorrow morning, this evening will already take on a mythic dimensia After the Election Day, we found ourselves in kind of a twilight zone.

This recount is mandated by Florida law.

Whenever a final ballot puts the margin of victory at less than one half of 1%.

The door was being open to this, this recount world, which was something brand new and dramatic and historic and difficult.

And then, of course, ensued, you know, a period of some of the most intense hand-to-hand political combat with the presidency as the struggled over prize.

[chanting] In a democracy everybody counts every vote must count.

Who won this election?

Bush!

Who conceded last week?

Gore!

And who's going to concede again?

Gore!

It was exhausting mentally to go through all of this and to have the back and forth of the courts and the count.

It was all out of our control.

I have this memory of calling my dad and saying, how are you doing?

And he said, you know, I'm finding I'm really enjoying peanut butter and jelly.

And I called my brother after I was like, dad has lost it.

We started getting protesters out in front of the house.

People being pretty vile and, you know, saying, get out of Cheney's house, get out of Cheney's house.

Al Gore lost!

Al Gore lost!

My mom kept saying, we know you won, sweetheart, but you may not get to take office.

It does appear as I look through here to be a 5-4 opinion.

In the end, the U.S.

Supreme Court decided for the Bush ticket and that was the end of it.

There's just no way that the court thinks a recount is possible.

We have all been living in suspended animation for over a month.

And then the Supreme Court ruled we didn't agree with it, but there was nobody else to appeal to.

National leaders have to show that they respect the law if they want the people to respect the law, and they have a right to contest and to argue and to go to court and make sure that justice is meted out appropriately.

But once that happens, we want to bring the country back together.

You want to unite the country.

Let there be no doubt.

While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it.

I thought it was the best speech he ever gave.

I was proud to be there.

And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy.

I offer my concession.

I've thought about it a lot since then, and I think he made the right decision.

How do you cope with the idea that one Supreme Court justice basically cost you the vice presidency and more?

He's truly a man of faith, and I think that sustained him.

I was lucky because though we lost at the national level, I was able to continue as a senator.

What I have is tremendous gratitude to Al Gore for giving me this opportunity.

We have a problem here.

We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York.

We don't know where he's going.

He said 190 at 29,000 ft, heading down.

We didn't really understand what was happening when the first plane hit.

And then we're beginning to see that this was a coordinated attack and not a one off.

Today we've had a national tragedy.

Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center.

None of us could imagine the terrorists would actually do what those terrorists did on 9/11.

I ended up being very much involved in the post 9/11 inquiries.

The Senate and Congress was totally unprepared for what to do.

The legislation we're introducing would create a national commission on terrorist attacks upon the United States.

Every major tragedy in America has called for a thorough and complete investigation.

There was a group within the White House that felt that it would somehow suggest that the Bush administration was unprepared for 9/11.

Public support began to grow.

Most important of all, the families, the survivors of 9/11 who lost people, friends, family on that day created a lobbying force and they were incredibly powerful.

Today, President Bush signed a bill that will, after all, create a special commission to investigate why the September 11th plot was not uncovered before the country was attacked.

And that commission said that 9/11 might not have happened if we had had somebody in charge of our intelligence community.

I thought it was time to have a formal legislation and actually create a Homeland Security department.

President Bush's administration was not crazy about the idea.

And yet Joe persevered.

It's now my privilege to sign the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

Senator Lieberman clearly was a driving force behind both of those initiatives.

I think that's one of his greatest accomplishments as a member of the Senate was both the creation of the Commission and the Department.

The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.

I was prepared to support a resolution authorizing President Bush to go into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

To me, it was the unfinished business of the Gulf War of 1991.

Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him.

The argument against going to war was we don't really know that Saddam is planning aggressive action against us.

So why are we looking for more trouble?

Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours.

Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict.

After lightning moves and pitch battles in the deserts and cities of Iraq.

The long, brutal rule of Saddam Hussein is over.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him.

Saddam supporters were defiant.

A day later, two massive car bombs exploded in Baghdad, a pattern that was to become increasingly familiar in a post-Saddam Iraq.

The postwar period there was really botched by the Administration.

Democrats began to leave support of the war.

It's a disgrace that the case for war seems to have been based on shoddy intelligence, hyped intelligence, and even false intelligence.

That's where I at some points, was really alone in the Democratic Caucus in refusing to vote to cut off funding for our troops in Iraq, which is a matter of general principle, seemed unseemly to me to stop supporting our military.

This was about people who were struggling, countries that were struggling, and with our troops being placed there, taking care of our troops.

I got in a lot of political trouble because of Iraq solely.

Of course, if I had known that, we would have made the mistakes we did after Saddam was overthrown and that so many lives Iraqi mostly, but also American, of course, soldiers would be lost and so much money would be spent by the U.S.. I probably would have said, it's not worth it.

I am ready to announce today that I am a candidate for President of the United States in 2004.

And I intend to win.

Ultimately, my unwillingness to totally oppose the war in Iraq, I think, made it impossible for me to secure that nomination.

I knew it was a tough assignment to begin with, and he felt badly because he really wanted to do that.

But what can you do?

You lose.

You lose.

I know who I am and what I stand for.

Iraq was sort of a different kettle of fish.

That situation only worsened, in 2005 and 6 when he found himself sort of, his own political liability being threatened in Connecticut, of all places.

He's gone and just a few years from one of the party standard bearers to the status of Lone Ranger on foreign policy.

It was clear that some of the left, the organized left wing groups, anti-war groups.

Particularly MoveOn.org, was beginning to be vocal against me and was looking for a candidate and ultimately they found Ned Lamont.

I think George Bush rushed into this war.

I think Joe Lieberman cheered him on every step of the way, and that those that got us into this mess should be held accountable.

It was very evident and very clear that we were going down in 2006, and we just could not stop the onslaught of the war.

Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, a man who almost became this nation's vice president a few years ago, could not win election by the voters of his own party in his own state.

I had a really a pro-democratic voting record in the Senate, except for the Iraq War.

But I was damned if I was going to let it end there.

I cannot and will not let that result stand.

Joe Lieberman officially filed today to run as an independent candidate.

Team Connecticut Democrats, Republicans and Independents, so we can move forward together to solve our most serious problems.

Sent him a very long message begging him not to do it.

Because I believe that our party needed his voice.

Neither party has a monopoly on good ideas, and therefore we ought to sit around a table together as Americans and try to find the best that both parties have to offer and make for progress.

I could say whatever I wanted, and I didn't have to worry about offending the sort of power structure in my party, which had already nonetheless done a pretty good job in offending.

But it was painful to see old friends support Ned Lamont.

I didn't focus on that, but it hurt.

I think he became more disillusioned with the Democratic Party.

I think he himself moved more to the right given what happened to him personally.

It's about people, not politics.

For all the angst over the Iraq war and that was genuine, people also remembered the Joe they had known since his Yale Law days.

The friendly guy who would help you.

Tonight, thanks to the voters of Connecticut, our journey has ended in victory and hope and the opportunity to make a difference for six more years.

In the general election, so many people stuck with me that it was really one of the most thrilling, satisfying, vindicating moments.

I will go to Washington beholden to no political group.

But... but only to the people of Connecticut.

and to my conscience.

That is my promise.

My relationship with the organized Connecticut Democratic Party it actually became more difficult after 2008 when I supported John McCain in the presidential election.

You know, I know it's unusual for a Democrat to be endorsing a Republican.

McCain was kind of floundering at the time, having trouble getting traction, wanting to win independent votes in New Hampshire.

And asked my dad for support as kind of an independent political person.

Yeah, that... that angered more Democrats.

Your friend Joe Lieberman.

Politically, I didn't agree with it.

Personally, I understand it.

You know, I think it was just for us.

It was something we couldn't cross.

He did it because he believed in John McCain.

He had spent more hours with John McCain than probably his own family did.

My friendship with John McCain was just one of the great blessings of my time in the Senate, and my life really, They didn't debate and hate.

They debated issues, talked about topics, disagreed sometimes, but also were still good friends.

After it was clear that Senator McCain was the nominee of the Republican Party.

he called Senator Lieberman and said, I'd really like to vet you for the vice presidential nomination.

Honestly, my reaction was, are you kidding?

You have McCain with his straight talk.

You have Lieberman, the likable guy.

What more can you want?

Senator Joe Lieberman will have a prime speaking slot at the GOP convention, but will it be as McCain's number two?

I'm here to support John McCain because country matters more than party.

He gave a speech there which, if there was any leftover goodwill among Democrats, it was lost that night.

Senator Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who I think can do great things for our country in the years ahead.

But my friend's eloquence is no substitute for a record.

I understand the deep respect that he had for Senator McCain.

I share that respect.

But if his personal relationship is what kept him from supporting President Obama, he should have stayed neutral in the race.

McCain really wanted Lieberman, and this would be a real problem to McCain's campaign.

Might even cost him the nomination on the floor, because picking a Democrat, particularly a pro-choice Democrat, would split the Republican convention in half.

We thought long and hard about Joe.

We really did.

But we just couldn't figure out a way to get him through the convention.

And so we had to had to table that and put it aside.

Some of us, I'll take credit myself, thought it might have been a very risky idea.

So John decided to take another kind of risk.

I will be honored to accept your nomination for Vice President of the United States.

Had it not been for the fact that Joe Lieberman was pro-choice, he might well have been the vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party.

And it would have been his second defeat for vice president.

This was a magic moment in American history that an African American man was about to be President of the United States.

But I wasn't there.

I wasn't part of it.

Change has come to America.

In the 2008 race, Afterwards, there were a few Democratic senators who were very upset.

Punishment was meted out to Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democrat turned independent who supported John McCain for president.

The Democratic caucus voted to allow Lieberman to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, but he will lose his chairmanship of an environmental subcommittee.

Joe was a good member of the Senate, a valuable member of the Senate, and a valuable member of the Democratic caucus.

And so the idea of, banning someone, I thought it was unwise, terribly unwise.

Democrats had 60 votes, which is what you in the Senate.

That's what you need to stop a filibuster.

They needed Lieberman's vote.

The president was all smiles at the White House today after a meeting with Senate Democrats appeared to convince him health care reform is within his grasp.

Right now, I will say that our position is that a public plan makes sense.

Public option was put in by a members of Congress who really wanted a national health insurance program, thought it would radically change health care in America and make it worse.

The government going into the health insurance business, I think it's such a mistake that, I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote.

Senator Lieberman was insistent on this point.

It was the price of his vote, and it was a price that Barack Obama ultimately decided to pay.

The Senate bill will not include everything the president wants.

Sources say there will be no public option.

I never thought the public option was really important to the White House and to President Obama.

When I said, clearly I wouldn't support the bill if it was in.

They took it out and I was, you might say, the 60th vote for Obamacare, which has provided health insurance for millions of people who couldn't afford it before.

I did not oppose the public option because there were health insurance companies in Connecticut.

I opposed it because I thought it would bust open our national debt, and it would be bad for health care in America.

Yeah, sometimes if you do it your way, you have to take the blows as Sinatra sang.

There is a significant group of people on the left of the political spectrum.

They have a hate on my dad.

They hate him.

It's almost like you'd have to give a trigger warning before mentioning his name.

He was a real liberal.

You know, people don't get that.

I mean, Joe was the real deal when it came to the progressive agenda.

He was ahead of the curve on the environment, on certain elements of gun control.

This is a table where people have been Democrats all their lives.

I'm still a registered Democrat.

President Clinton, in the campaign of '92, had promised he would do something about the discriminatory treatment of gay and lesbian Americans in the American military.

Servicemen and women will be judged based on their conduct, not their sexual orientation.

And the military opposed it strongly.

And they came up with this compromise of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which I thought was terribly unfair.

That meant that gay servicemen and women would have to not say that they were gay and not talk about it.

And so he was a person that the gay community came to and said, we'd really like you to take a leadership role here.

So I said, I'd be honored to do it.

Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Is the right thing to do, whether you're Liberal, Conservative, Democrat or Republican.

It's consistent with the best American values.

It wasn't immediate.

It wasn't easy, but we worked it and we got it across the 60 vote finish line.

This law I'm about to sign will strengthen our national security and uphold the Ideals that our fighting men and women risked their lives to defend.

This is done.

We joined forces to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

That could only be done with bipartisan support.

That was one of the most satisfying moments of my legislative career.

I have always felt that I didn't want to end my life in the U.S.

Senate or have my life end in the U.S.

Senate as some people did, and you had to know when to leave the stage I have decided that it's time to turn the page to a new chapter.

And so I will not be a candidate for reelection to a fifth term in the United States Senate in 2012 I know that some people have.

said that if I ran for reelection it would be a difficult campaign for me.

So what else is new?

I'm excited about beginning a new chapter of life with new opportunities.

Okay, I retired from the Senate, but I don't think I'll ever fully retire until I have to, physically or mentally.

We're still arguing about where did the Covid-19 pandemic begin and how.

He's been dedicated to public policy since he left the Senate.

The surprise attack by Hamas first was shocking.

There'll be a time for this afterword about how they possibly could have done this.

What Hamas did on October 7th was brutal beyond imagination.

As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me, that the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th.

That was a diplomatic red line that I have never in all my years seen crossed.

And it's just, it is outrageous.

His involvement now, on the many other causes, shows that it wasn't because he was looking for votes.

He did it because he believed in it and understood the significance.

Nancy Jacobson had this idea for a group which would have the purpose to reconstruct the center of American politics where bipartisan work could get done.

And I urged her on.

The independent group No Labels is stepping up efforts to field a third party unity ticket in 2024.

We're only going to run if we think it has a realistic chance to win.

And, we're not going to be a spoiler.

Third parties emerge in history with a very clear diagnosis.

They understand a problem.

It's like, these are my options.

My options suck.

I'll do something else.

You hear this outcry by a majority of the American people who want more choices and want better choices.

If ever there were a time for a third choice on the presidential ballot, it is now.

Breaking news here of the afternoon on the third party front, because No Labels just announced that they are not going to go through with this.

For the reason being, they could not field candidates that they said that they believed could credibly win the White House.

I think this is the next step to trying to break the iron hold that partisanship has had on our political system.

So I take my inspiration from Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson said he believed in a little political rebellion every so often, which was as important in politics as storms are in the natural world.

I take it he meant to remove the deadwood.

You don't apologize for who your friends are.

Not in this place.

You don't apologize for who your friends are.

Even though you're a pain in the ass sometimes.

Well, listen.

Thanks.

Your friendship is a blessing to me anyway, I love you guys.

Really.

We love you too.

Thanks for being a friend.

Thank you.

Yo, kid.

I go forward with a tremendous sense of gratitude for the opportunities that I've been blessed with to make a difference.

As it says in Psalm 13, I will sing to the Lord, for he has treated me so kindly.

Longtime Senator Joe Lieberman, a deeply religious and observant Jewish senator from Connecticut, has died suddenly.

I so did not want to write this particular speech, and it seems impossible that I have to.

Our dad was so vital and engaged.

He was blessed by God and by a good upbringing to be the great and decent guy, the supreme mensch that he was down to the bone.

The lessons you passed down to us of kindness, of integrity, of positivity, of righteousness will live on forever in our family and all those who choose to learn from you.

His integrity was not a blinding light.

It was a magnetic field.

Politics can be a rough trade.

The stakes are high.

The pressures are great.

Joe and I experienced those.

But he always knew beyond doubt the true value of things.

He was blessed.

And he was a blessing for all of us.

All right.

With all respect to the great Sinatra who I loved.

Yeah, I think you're better at this than him.

Wait until you hear me.

Max?

And now the end is near.

And so I face the final curtain.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

My friends, I'll say it clear I'll state my case, of which I am certain.

Now, I know some people think that my opponent doesn't know about rock n roll, you know.

I mean, somebody told me that he thinks Crosby, Stills and Nash is a law firm in Stamford... Hey!

What do you mean, what am I?

What are we trying to do?

I'm Attorney General Joe Lieberman, and we're using the law to crack down What's the matter?

How to get your kids the support they deserve in plain language.

Regrets.

Here's one right here.

Oh, boy.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your mother.

Thank you very much.

Good night.

I did it my way.