John McCain

Meghan McCain and President Barack Obama took apparent swipes at President Trump on Saturday in a eulogy for John McCain — who sparred with Trump on a number of occasions before his death last week of brain cancer.

“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,’ McCain’s daughter said, in what appeared to be a reference to Trump’s presidential campaign slogan: “Make America Great Again.”

The remarks were made during a funeral service at Washington National Cathedral for the Arizona Republican, who died last week of brain cancer.

Obama’s jabs were more subtle but still appeared to be directed at the current occupant of the White House. He derided those in politics who traffic in “bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage.”

He also attacked “a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born of fear.”

Former President Barack Obama speaks at the funeral service for Sen. John McCain at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

“John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that,” he said.

It was Meghan McCain who had the most searing swipes at the president however. Notably she said that her father’s passing represented the passing of “American greatness. The real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.”

The casket of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is carried down the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018, in Washington, for a departure to the Washington National Cathedral for a memorial service. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)

Former presidents will be among those paying tribute to John McCain. (AP)

Former President George W. Bush also paid tribute to McCain.

American service members in dress uniform carried Senator John McCain into the United States Capitol for the final time; chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel reports.

“John – as he was the first to tell you – was not a perfect man. But he dedicated his life to national ideals that are as perfect as men and women have yet conceived,” he said. “He was motivated by a vision of America carried ever forward, ever upward, on the strength of its principles.”

The funeral service notably did not feature President Trump, who had feuded with McCain, particularly during the presidential campaign. In 2015, after McCain had said Trump’s platform had “fired up the crazies,” Trump had mocked McCain’s imprisonment in the Vietnam War, saying: “I like people that weren’t captured.” Trump has also fumed about McCain’s vote last year to kill off a bill to reform ObamaCare.

Both Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner were in attendance. Trump, meanwhile, went to the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. He also tweeted about subjects including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Russian investigation.

A six-term senator and a Vietnam veteran who was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years, McCain pushed for bipartisanship on the Hill. He ran against Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. He clinched the nomination in 2008 but was defeated in the presidential election by Obama.

FAREWELL STATEMENT FROM JOHN MCCAIN

Other notable speakers included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman.

“His death seems to have reminded the American people that these values are what makes us a great nation, not the tribal partisanship and personal attack politics that have recently characterized our life, ” Lieberman, who McCain considered for his vice-presidential nominee, said.

McCain’s pallbearers included actor Warren Beatty and Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Earlier Saturday, his casket traveled to the cathedral after stopping at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where McCain’s wife Cindy laid a wreath. Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly accompanied her.

On Friday colleagues, family and friends paid tribute to his service both in the military and the Congress as he lay in state underneath the Capitol rotunda.

JOHN MCCAIN HONORED AT US CAPITOL, LAWMAKERS PAY TRIBUTE TO ‘GENERATIONAL LEADER’

With members of McCain’s family in attendance, Vice President Mike Pence said Americans “marveled at the iron will of John McCain” and praised him for holding fast “to his faith in America through six decades of service.”

“Generations of Americans will continue to marvel at the man who lies before us, the cocky, handsome naval aviator who barely scraped through school, and then fought for freedom in the skies; who witnessed to our highest values, even through terrible torture; and who became a generational leader in the United States Senate, where our nation airs its great debates,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said.

Tributes have poured in from both sides of the aisle for the Republican senator and 2008 presidential nominee. On Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden remembered McCain as a brother, and said the two were “cockeyed optimists” in a memorial service for McCain at a church in Phoenix.

Highlights from another busy week in Washington and around the country.

Biden, a Democrat, declared that McCain’s “legacy is going to continue to inspire generations.”

McCain is to be buried Sunday at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, next to his best friend from the Class of 1958, Adm. Chuck Larson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

John McCain criticizes Trump’s feud with Muslim family

STATEMENT FROM JOHN McCAIN REGARDING THE KHAN FAMILY

Phoenix, AZ– John McCain issued the following statement today regarding Donald Trump’s comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004:

“The Republican Party I know and love is the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.

“I wear a bracelet bearing the name of a fallen hero, Matthew Stanley, which his mother, Lynn, gave me in 2007, at a town hall meeting in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. His memory and the memory of our great leaders deserve better from me.

“In recent days, Donald Trump disparaged a fallen soldier’s parents. He has suggested that the likes of their son should not be allowed in the United States — to say nothing of entering its service. I cannot emphasize enough how deeply I disagree with Mr. Trump’s statement. I hope Americans understand that the remarks do not represent the views of our Republican Party, its officers, or candidates.

“Make no mistake: I do not valorize our military out of some unfamiliar instinct. I grew up in a military family, and have my own record of service, and have stayed closely engaged with our armed forces throughout my public career. In the American system, the military has value only inasmuch as it protects and defends the liberties of the people.

“My father was a career naval officer, as was his father. For hundreds of years, every generation of McCains has served the United States in uniform.

“My sons serve today, and I’m proud of them. My youngest served in the war that claimed Captain Khan’s life as well as in Afghanistan. I want them to be proud of me. I want to do the right thing by them and their comrades.

“Humayun Khan did exactly that — and he did it for all the right reasons. This accomplished young man was not driven to service as a United States Army officer because he was compelled to by any material need. He was inspired as a young man by his reading of Thomas Jefferson — and he wanted to give back to the country that had taken him and his parents in as immigrants when he was only two years old.

“Captain Khan’s death in Iraq, on June 8th, 2004, was a shining example of the valor and bravery inculcated into our military. When a suicide bomber accelerated his vehicle toward a facility with hundreds of American soldiers, Captain Khan ordered his subordinates away from the danger.

“Then he ran toward it.

“The suicide bomber, striking prematurely, claimed the life of Captain Khan — and Captain Khan, through his selfless action and sacrifice, saved the lives of hundreds of his brothers and sisters.

“Scripture tells us that ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

“Captain Humayun Khan of the United States Army showed in his final moments that he was filled and motivated by this love. His name will live forever in American memory, as an example of true American greatness.

“In the end, I am morally bound to speak only to the things that command my allegiance, and to which I have dedicated my life’s work: the Republican Party, and more importantly, the United States of America. I will not refrain from doing my utmost by those lights simply because it may benefit others with whom I disagree.

July 28, Khizr Khan, father of fallen US Army Capt. Humayun S. M. Khan and his wife Ghazala speak during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump broke a major American political and societal taboo over the weekend when he engaged in an emotionally-charged feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the bereaved parents of a decorated Muslim Army captain killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq. He further stoked outrage by implying Ghazala Khan did not speak while standing alongside her husband at last week's Democratic convention because they are Muslim. — July 28, Khizr Khan, father of fallen US Army Capt. Humayun S. M. Khan and his wife Ghazala speak during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump broke a major American political and societal taboo over the weekend when he engaged in an emotionally-charged feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the bereaved parents of a decorated Muslim Army captain killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq. He further stoked outrage by implying Ghazala Khan did not speak while standing alongside her husband at last week’s Democratic convention because they are Muslim.

“I claim no moral superiority over Donald Trump. I have a long and well-known public and private record for which I will have to answer at the Final Judgment, and I repose my hope in the promise of mercy and the moderation of age. I challenge the nominee to set the example for what our country can and should represent.

“Arizona is watching. It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party. While our Party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.

“Lastly, I’d like to say to Mr. and Mrs. Khan: thank you for immigrating to America. We’re a better country because of you. And you are certainly right; your son was the best of America, and the memory of his sacrifice will make us a better nation — and he will never be forgotten.”

John McCain criticizes Trump’s feud with Muslim family

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