Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker Dead at 88

Photo By Bill Clark/Roll Call/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker passed away on Thursday at the age of 88.

The Republican senator from Tennessee also served as White House chief of staff under Ronald Reagan and ambassador to Japan during his political career. Baker served in the Senate representing the state of Tennessee from 1967 to 1985. He became the Senate Minority Leader in 1977 and the Majority Leader in 1981.

After declining to run for re-election in 1984, Baker’s seat was taken by Al Gore. Baker was later named Reagan’s chief of staff in 1987. According to a statement from Nancy Reagan, the former president called Baker “a hero of the Republic.”

Current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on Thursday that the Senate “has lost a member of its family,” calling Baker “an earnest man” who “worked with any and all members of this body in passing legislation for the good of America.”

Baker was known as “the great conciliator,” a nickname that Sen. Mitch McConnell says he “truly earned.”

Perhaps most memorably, during the Watergate hearings, Baker was the senator who asked, “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

Baker was also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


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Former Senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82

Win McNamee/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Former Sen. Joe Lieberman has died, his family announced Wednesday. He was 82 years old. Lieberman died in New York City “due to complications from a fall,” his family said in