It was one of the iconic moments of the election—when CNN political commentator Van Jones openly wept on the air the Saturday morning his network called it for Joe Biden, choking up and saying that President Donald Trump’s defeat will make it “easier to be a dad.” In an oral history of CNN’s punishing week of election coverage, Jones told Esquire why he found the moment so overwhelming, saying it struck him when friends of his from immigrant communities started “blowing up” his phone. “Their just palpable relief and joy really hit me hard; it cracked open in me my own sense of relief, which you really kind of have to dissociate from,” he said. “I think I surprised myself as much as anybody else with what I said and the emotions behind it. I didn’t realize how much I was sitting on, and I think probably a lot of people around the world felt the same way.”