The event was about the life of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., bringing together three former presidents and two popular vote winners who nevertheless like the departed came up short in their bids for the office.
But it was hard to avoid thinking about the man who wasn’t there, and President Trump was very much on the minds of McCain’s eulogists. No one confronted the elephant in the room more directly than the late senator’s most famous daughter.
If there was any question as to whose “American greatness” was “cheap rhetoric” rather than the “real thing” represented by her father, Meghan McCain answered emphatically in her emotional remarks: “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
The concept of America as a transcendent idea as opposed to a nation that exists in a concrete time and place as other nation-states do has long been the subject of debate, especially among conservatives. But this eulogy was delivered against the backdrop of a Trump-McCain feud dating back to at least 2015, if not longer.
McCain took his own shots at Trump, even after the businessman and reality TV star became titular head of their political party and ultimately president of the United States. But Trump questioned whether McCain was a war hero; failed to mention him when signing into law a National Defense Authorization Act that bore his name; stayed silent about McCain’s long illness while continuing to slam his Obamacare vote in public speeches; said nothing when an aide’s thoughtless comment about McCain’s impending death was reported; did the bare minimum when McCain ultimately died.
These were the things done in public. There have been reports that Trump made other unkind statements and gestures in private, even as McCain was dying. In that context, it is hard to imagine a loving daughter holding her tongue even out of respect for the presidency as an institution.
“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” Meghan McCain said. “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 live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served.”
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were far more subtle. Bush said human dignity did not end at the border. Obama lamented the “small and mean and petty” state of our public discourse.
“It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear,” Obama said. “John called on us to be bigger than that, he called on us to be better than that.” Bush sounded a similar theme: “To the face of those in authority, John McCain would insist: We are better than this. America is better than this.”
Numerous Trump administration officials were seated in the pews, including White House chief of staff John Kelly and national security adviser John Bolton. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were present. Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the McCain event at the Capitol on Friday.
I have no doubt Trump believes he has been on his best behavior since McCain passed. It was McCain who pointedly requested the president stay away from the funeral, organizing it as an implicitly anti-Trump event. Trump complied with the public’s demands that he again lower the White House flags and has not, as of this writing, hit back either on Twitter or when baited by reporters.
McCain did not pretend to like Trump better than he did once the businessman won the White House. Trump returned the favor.
Just as many see McCain’s passing as an opportunity to celebrate bipartisan norms Trump has helped erode, the president’s staunchest supporters undoubtedly viewed it as an event where a besieged Washington elite that has colluded against them across party lines on immigration, foreign policy and trade once again gathered to express contempt for the “deplorables.”
Still, the president was conspicuous by his absence from a moment of national unity.
In a 2017 interview with “60 Minutes,” McCain was asked if he would be “receptive” to a “rapprochement” with Trump if the president wanted one. “Of course, of course,” he replied, starting to rattle off areas where he had supported Trump’s policies. Lesley Stahl then pressed him by saying she meant something more personal.
“Sure, I’d be glad to converse with him,” McCain said. “But I also understand that we’re different people, different upbringing, different life experiences.”
Watching the equivalent of a state funeral with the president tweeting or golfing, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was a missed opportunity for Trump — and perhaps the country he was elected to lead.
