Meghan McCain attacked “cheap rhetoric” and those who use it during her speech at her father’s funeral service on Saturday in Washington while taking several swipes at President Trump.
In her eulogy honoring Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the first remarks from a scheduled speaker at the service, McCain, 33, battled tears as she recounted her father’s wartime sacrifice in Vietnam.
“He was a great man,” McCain told the audience. “We gather here to mourn 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,” she added.
As the younger McCain spoke, cameras showed the late senator’s wife, Cindy McCain, staring forward and applauding her daughter’s remarks.
Meghan McCain went after the president elsewhere in her speech, dropping a reference to Trump’s signature 2016 campaign slogan as well.
{mosads}”The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” she said to applause.
McCain addressed a packed audience at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday, with various lawmakers and dignitaries on hand to honor the late senator.
Trump himself was not invited to attend the service, though his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner were in attendance, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House chief of staff John Kelly, among others.
The president spent the morning tweeting about trade issues and surveillance of his 2016 presidential campaign before leaving Washington to pay a visit to his golf club in northern Virginia, according to White House pool reports.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also delivered eulogies during McCain’s service on Saturday, using their speeches to address the current political climate in the U.S.
“He was courageous, with a courage that frightened his captors and inspired his countrymen. He was honest no matter whom it offended. Presidents were not spared,” Bush said during his speech.
“John detested the abuse of power. He could not abide bigots and swaggering despots,” he added.
Obama, McCain’s 2008 presidential rival, also spoke of his relationship with the former longtime senator, recalling how despite their political differences they both viewed themselves as on the same “team.”
“So much of our politics, public life, public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast, and insult, and phony controversies, and manufactured outrage,” said Obama, who said that McCain called on his allies and enemies alike to be “better.”
Meghan McCain remarked during her speech that her father was not “defined” by his membership in the Republican Party any more than he was by his service in the Navy or by his capture by North Vietnamese forces.
“John McCain was not defined by prison, by the Navy, by the Senate, by the Republican Party, or by any single one of the deeds in his absolutely extraordinary life,” she told the audience.
“John McCain was defined by love,” McCain added.
The Arizona senator, who had served in the legislative body since 1987, died last week at the age of 81, a year after being diagnosed with brain cancer.
Before his death, the senator battled frequently with his own party over issues such as health care and support for Trump.
Updated: 1:15 p.m.
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