Arizona Senator John McCain does not want President Trump to attend his funeral it was revealed this week. Members of McCain’s family contacted the White House to request that Trump skip the event, but invited Vice President Mike Pence to attend.
Senator McCain was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer, Glioblastoma, last year and his health is quickly deteriorating. The 81-year-old also recently underwent surgery for an intestinal infection. He was joined this weekend by his daughter Meghan, who flew to the McCain family ranch in Arizona to keep an eye on her ailing father. Megan McCain, who is a co-host on television’s The View, thanked fans for supporting her. She will return to the show on Tuesday, she said.
The McCain family did not specify a reason for disinviting President Trump from McCain’s funeral, but the two men have had tumultuous. Much of that animosity started on the 2016 campaign trail when Donald Trump mocked McCain for being captured by enemy troops during the Vietnam war.
“He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said during a 2016 campaign event. Trump was heavily criticized for the statements and many even thought it would be Trump’s downfall during the election season.
McCain spent 5 ½ years as a POW in a Vietnamese prison camp being tortured repeatedly and suffering permanent damage to his arms.
Senator McCain was able to return the favor last year when he cast a deciding vote against the repealing and replacing of Obamacare, a major Trump campaign promise. McCain’s vote killed the legislation in the Senate. The move was praised by former President Barack Obama, who thanked McCain for the vote in a phone call, but also drew massive criticism from President Trump.
McCain also reportedly attacked President Trump an upcoming book, “The Restless Waive.”
“He seems uninterested in the moral character of world leaders and their regimes,” he writes of the president, according to The New York Times, which obtained an advanced copy of the book. “The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values. Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity.”
McCain’s family have also invited former President’s Barack Obama and George W. Bush to deliver eulogies at the funeral. The funeral is scheduled to take place at Washington’s National Cathedral.
Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr