Mccain ‘doesn’t want president at funeral’

‘I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. Maybe I’ll have five years. Maybe I’ll be gone before you read this’

JOHN MCCAIN, the ailing Republican senator, does not want Donald Trump to attend his funeral, the White House has been told.

Instead, his associates have requested Mike Pence, the vice-president, be present when the time comes, with Barack Obama and George W Bush giving eulogies at the National Cathedral in Washington, The New York Times reports.

Mr Mccain, the former presidential candidate and Vietnam War hero, has been undergoing treatment for glioblastoma, a rare brain cancer, since last year.

He and Mr Trump have had a turbulent relationship.

During the 2016 presidential primaries, Mr Trump said that Mr Mccain was considered a war hero only “because he was captured” during the Vietnam War and that he preferred military figures who avoided being taken prisoner by the enemy.

And last summer, the US leader criticised the Arizona politician for his “no” vote that helped doom a key part of his Obamacare repeal bill in the senate.

Reading from his memoir to be published next month, the 81-year-old said: “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here.

“Maybe I’ll have another five years. Maybe I’ll be gone before you [read] this. My predicament is, well, rather unpredictable.”