Pablo Martinez Monsivais/APMeghan McCain speaks at a memorial service for her father Sen. John McCain at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Sept. 1, 2018.
Meghan McCain, a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” added, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
‘He’s my hero’: Mourners, some traveling for hours to get to Arizona, remember John McCain
Trump was not invited to Saturday’s ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral, but three former presidents were there.
Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush were asked to give eulogies, while former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2016, were in attendance.
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John McCain remembered as a loving father, joke-telling friend, statesman at national memorial service
The speakers seemed to criticize the president’s policies and politics, if not Trump himself.
Obama said in his tribute that McCain understood “that part of what makes our country great is that our membership is based not on our bloodline, not what we look like, what our last names are. It’s not based on where our parents or grandparents came from or how recently they arrived, but on adherence to a common creed that all of us are created equal.”
Obama denounced a politics “that pretends to be brave and tough, but in fact, is born of fear.”
“John called on us to be bigger than that,” Obama said. “He called on us to be better than that.”
Obama recalled private meetings with McCain at the White House, during which “we never doubted the other man’s sincerity or the other man’s patriotism. Or that when all was said and done, we were on the same team.”
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Former Sen. Joe Lieberman also spoke at the service, and in an apparent swipe at Trump, he said, “this week’s celebration of the life and values and patriotism of this hero, I think, have taken our country above” partisan battles.
“In a way, it’s the last great gift that John McCain gave America,” Lieberman said.
Chris Wattie/ReutersFormer President Barack Obama speaks at the memorial service of Senator John McCain at National Cathedral in Washington, Sept. 1, 2018.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were both present at Saturday’s ceremony, as well as Chief of Staff John Kelly, who accompanied the late senator’s wife Cindy McCain to the Vietnam Memorial ahead of the funeral.
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The president spent Saturday at his private golf club in Sterling, Virginia. He tweeted Saturday, threatening Congress not to interfere with his renegotiation of NAFTA.
Trump came under public pressure to acknowledge the former Vietnam prisoner of war and longtime Arizona senator after initially releasing only a short tweet of condolences and lowering the White House flag for less than 48 hours.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/APThe family of Sen. John McCain follows as his casket is carried during the recessional at the end of a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Sept. 1, 2018.
The White House eventually returned the flag to half-staff under pressure from veterans groups and even some of its own staffers.
When asked whether he missed an opportunity to unite the country, Trump stood by his actions, telling Bloomberg News, “No, I don’t think I did at all.”
“I’ve done everything that they requested,” Trump said.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
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