Burris Discusses Meeting With Senate Leaders

FORMER ILL. ATTORNEY GENERAL ROLAND BURRIS (D): I'd like to thank you all of the media very much. You all have been very kind to me and my staff, and we really appreciate your professionalism. This morning, I had a great meeting with Majority Leader Reid and Majority Whip Durbin. And in that meeting we discussed quite a few things.

But I had an important phone call before I went to that meeting, and that phone call was from my friend, president -- former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter.

And we chatted very briefly, and he indicated to me to "just tell everybody I said when you're in the Senate, Roland, you will make a great senator."

And I said, "Thank you very much, Mr. President."

And, of course, that gave me a little energy with going in to meet with my good friend and fellow colleague Dick Durbin, who I've known for years. We've campaigned up and down Illinois for many, many years, and marched in all those parades and stepped on each other's toes and got pushed over by...

(LAUGHTER)