Mccain’s daughter, Obama, Bush take potshots at Trump
WASHINGTON : Former US presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush used their eulogies to John Mccain to criticise the current state of politics without mentioning the man they were targeting, President Donald Trump, who was away at a golf course.
“So much of our politics can seem small and mean and petty. Trafficking in bombast and insult, phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” said Obama. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough, but is instead born of fear. John called on us to be bigger than that, to be better than that.”
Bush said Mccain “detested the abuse of power and could not abide bigots and swaggering despots.”
Whenever the nation forgets who it is, Bush said, “John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder: ‘We’re better than this, America is better than this’.”
In an extraordinary show of political unity, arranged by Mccain who had invited them himself before his passing, the two former presidents from rival parties tied by their respective presidential runs against Mccain, called for a better America and more civility.
Meghan Mccain, the late senator’s daughter, set the tone when she said in her eulogy, to spontaneous applause, “The America of John Mccain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
That was a reference to Trump’s campaign slogan in 2016, “Make America great again”.
Trump, who was not invited to the service, was represented by his chief of staff John Kelly, defence secretary James Mattis and national security adviser John Bolton.
His daughter and son-in-law Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner also attended.