Meghan McCain: I wish ‘unwelcome’ Ivanka and Jared had not attended my father’s funeral

Meghan McCain said Thursday that she wished President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner had not attended her father’s funeral.

“The View” co-host told late-night host Stephen Colbert that she was “surprised” when the two White House senior advisers appeared at Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) service in September.

“A funeral is sort of obviously sacred time and I thought that my family had made it clear, at least I had, that the Trumps are unwelcome around me,” McCain said. “My father had been very clear about the line between the McCains and the Trumps so I was surprised when they were there.”{mosads}

The late senator and former GOP presidential nominee died at the age of 81 following a brain cancer diagnosis and was able to help plan his funeral. He reportedly did not want Trump to attend, given their contentious relationship. 

“It’s sort of a strange element to my life now that they attended and I wish they had chosen not to out of respect, if nothing more for me,” McCain said. “But it’s their call and I think America can judge on its own what they thought of that and what they thought of my eulogy.”

McCain said she was uncomfortable by the presence of the president’s daughter and son-in-law but added that she hoped she made them uncomfortable. 

She gave a fiery eulogy at the service in Washington and took several swipes at the president with his daughter in the audience.

“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.

It was reported shortly before the funeral that John McCain’s close friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.),  personally invited Trump and Kushner to the service. Graham later said that “nobody was at that funeral that did not get invited by the family.”

McCain’s daughter, however, said Thursday she would have “beef” with the Trumps forever, stemming from the president’s attacks on her father.

The two men feuded since then-candidate Trump hit the campaign trail, denouncing McCain’s service in the Vietnam War, where he was tortured as a prisoner of war for more than five years.

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump famously said.

He also lashed out at McCain for for breaking with his party to vote against the GOP’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act. 

The president went after John McCain as recently as this week, reportedly making fun of the former senator’s book during a private lunch with television anchors hours before his State of the Union address. 

“The president’s obsession with my father 6 months after his death is pathetic and telling – even at a time when he should be focusing on his message to the American public and the state of our union,” Meghan McCain responded in a Twitter post.

The president’s obsession with my father 6 months after his death is pathetic and telling – even at a time when he should be focusing on his message to the American public and the state of our union – the greatness of my father’s life and legacy haunts you. https://t.co/JLgHoZwCKD

— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) February 6, 2019