Roy Blunt: “I have one story I want to tell about Senator Coats. We have been able to serve together on the Intel Committee. We sit…”

“I have one story I want to tell about Senator Coats. We have been able to serve together on the Intel Committee. We sit near each other on that committee. We work together on other things. I came to the Senate when Senator Coats came back to the Senate. It has already been established here that he served and then served in another capacity as Ambassador. Then in 2010, when the Presiding Officer and I came to the Senate, he came with us. In almost everything in the Senate, there is some element of seniority in how everything is done. As the only person in our class with prior Senate service, Dan Coats is the ranking member of our class. He was 88th in seniority in the Senate the day he started his second term of the Senate. For circumstances, I turned out to be 89th. In the process of going through and selecting offices, when they got to 88, Dan Coats called me, standing in the hallway of the Russell Senate Office Building, and he said: I am standing here in front of an office that says it was Harry Truman's office when he was in the Senate. You choose after me; don't you? I said: Yes, I choose after you. He said: If I don't take this office, will you take it? It was the best of the 12 offices still left. That wouldn't have been the reason I would take it, but I said: Yes, I will take that office.…”