It was one of the late John McCain’s final requests that the sitting president not be invited, but his longtime foe was still a little present. Speaking at her father’s funeral, Meghan McCain delivered an emotional eulogy, focusing on the six-term senator as a family man who inspired her and gave her strength. She also got in a couple digs at the man who once said of her father, “I prefer people who weren’t captured.”
“The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold,” the View co-host said. “She is resourceful and confident and secure. She meets her responsibilities, She speaks quietly because she is strong. America does not boast because she has no need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be great again because America was always great.”
Meghan, who has defended the president in the past, also slipped in a nod to Trump’s criticism of her father. “We live in an era where we knock down old American heroes for all their imperfections. When no leader wants to admit to fault or failure,” Meghan said, then talking to her father. “You were an exception, and you gave us an ideal to strive for. Look, I know you can see this gathering here in this cathedral. The nation is here to remember you.”
Still, Meghan wouldn’t let the president dominate her tribute to her father. “John McCain was defined by love,” she said. “I know who he was. I know what defined him. I got to see it every single day of my blessed life.” She broke into tears when recalling a time when her father carried her to bed after she skinned her knee. “The best of John McCain, the greatest of his titles and the most important of his roles, was as a father,” she said.
In other news, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were invited to the funeral.