Jake Tapper: McCain not wanting Trump at his funeral is ‘real moment for the country’

CNN’s Jake Tapper is weighing in on a New York Times report that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) doesn’t want President Trump at his funeral, calling it a “real moment for the country.”

“This is a real moment for the country where an American hero, somebody who is beloved in many, many ways, is saying, ‘I don’t want this guy at my funeral,’” Tapper said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

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The Times reported Saturday that McCain’s inner circle has communicated to the White House that the senator would like Vice President Pence to attend his eventual funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, but not Trump.

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said during a panel discussion on Tapper’s CNN show that McCain is “known for being honest, just the opposite of Donald Trump.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything to be different for Mr. McCain, Sen. McCain, now. He is not going to be a hypocrite. He does not believe that Donald Trump represents the kind of moral authority the president of the United States should represent for our country,” Meeks said.

And conservative commentator and HLN host S.E. Cupp, who is close friends with McCain’s daughter Meghan, added that McCain is “not a sellout.”

“I think having President Trump, just because he’s the president, just speak on his behalf or eulogize him or memorialize him is selling out,” Cupp said.

“And Sen. McCain — I say this not just as his daughter’s best friend but as a Republican who supported him — Sen. McCain is everything that President Trump is not,” Cupp continued. “In every way that you discussed, in every way you imagine.”

McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer last year and is undergoing treatment.