New York Daily News

LOVE FOR JOHN, RIP AT DON

McCain’s daughter speaks out as do former Presidents who come to honor her dad

- BY JESSICA SCHLADEBEC­K AND DENIS SLATTERY

Meghan McCain picked up her father’s mantle Saturday, targeting President Trump in a passionate and personal eulogy honoring her dad, the late Sen. John McCain.

The fiery and heartfelt tribute set the tone for a memorial service that echoed the senator’s own fighting spirit and adversaria­l relationsh­ip with Trump as former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush each took more subdued jabs at the current occupant of the White House.

The younger McCain made her feelings clear as she ripped into Trump and his divisive rhetoric without once mentioning the conspicuou­sly absent commander-in-chief by name.

“America does not boast because she does not have a need to,” she said. “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

The cavernous National Cathedral in Washington filled with applause as she continued.

“The America of John McCain is the America of the boys who rushed the colors in every war across three centuries knowing that in them is the life of the Republic,” she said.

Trump was not invited to the service, which featured a who’s who of Washington elites including three former Presidents and members of Congress, current and former world leaders and members of the military.

“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” Meghan McCain, a co-host of “The View,” told the 2,500 black-clad mourners. “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.”

Obama spoke of long talks he and John McCain would have privately in the Oval Office and the senator’s understand­ing that America’s security and influence came not from “our ability to bend others to our will” but universal values of rule of law and human rights.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, tracking in bombast and insult and phony controvers­ies and manufactur­ed outrage,” Obama said in another notso-veiled nod to Trump. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

Bush said one of the great gifts in his life was becoming friends with his former White House rival. He said they would in later years recall their political battles like former football players rememberin­g the big game.

But mostly Bush recalled a champion for the “forgotten people” at home and abroad whose legacy will serve as a reminder, even in times of doubt, of the power of America as more than a physical place but a “carrier of human aspiration­s.”

“John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our

shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this,” Bush said.

McCain died Aug. 25 at age 81 after a yearlong battle with brain cancer.

He was a decorated Navy veteran who was held for more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam before entering politics. McCain, despite being known as a hot head, was remembered as a six-term Republican senator with the ability to reach across the aisle and form friendship­s with people of all political stripes.

McCain’s motorcade arrived from the Capitol, where he lay in state overnight, and the procession made a stop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where McCain’s wife, Cindy, placed a wreath. His flag-draped casket was escorted by military body bearers up the cathedral steps under gray skies.

McCain endured more than five years of captivity and torture after being shot down as a Navy pilot over Hanoi and has been heralded as a war hero in the years since.

Former Secretary of Sate Henry Kissinger also delivCapie­red remarks, and despite the President’s absence, two of his top aides, White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, joined the services.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner also attended.

The President spent the afternoon at his Virginia golf course after tweeting out criticisms of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and threatenin­g Canada over trade negotiatio­ns.

Among some of McCain’s 15 pallbearer­s were former Vice President Joe Biden, actor Warren Beatty and FedEx founder Fred Smith.

In his final weeks and months, McCain took personal control over the preparatio­ns for his remembranc­e, cultivatin­g his final message to Americans.

The commemorat­ions began Wednesday in Arizona and continued on to the tol Rotunda, where his body lay in state on Friday — an honor bestowed on only 30 other Americans.

McCain also took his own parting shot at Trump in a farewell letter to the nation, released days after his death.

“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe,” he wrote.

“We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”

McCain’s family on Sunday will travel to his final resting place in Annapolis, Md., and say their goodbyes during a private ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy.

 ??  ?? Emotional Meghan McCain (r.) remembers dad but also makes clear Saturday at National Cathedral (below) in Washington distaste for President Trump, who was playing golf (opposite page). Ex-Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama (l. to r. opposite page) attended service. Below, McCain’s widow, Cindy, at Vietnam memorial with Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
Emotional Meghan McCain (r.) remembers dad but also makes clear Saturday at National Cathedral (below) in Washington distaste for President Trump, who was playing golf (opposite page). Ex-Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama (l. to r. opposite page) attended service. Below, McCain’s widow, Cindy, at Vietnam memorial with Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
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