Sen. John McCain dies at 81

The White House asked the US Navy to hide a massive ship named in part after Sen. John McCain ahead of President Donald Trump’s trip to Japan — a request exposing the great lengths staff will go to ensure Trump isn’t triggered by the memory of his former rival.

The president traveled to Yokosuka naval base to speak to American and Japanese troops on Memorial Day during his four-day trip to the Pacific nation. USS John S. McCain — named after the late lawmaker, his father, and his grandfather — is docked there for repairs after a 2017 collision that killed 10 sailors. That means there was a good chance Trump would see the destroyer, prominently featuring the McCain name, once he helicoptered in.

John McCain was many things in life — a war hero, a political reformer, a militarist, a principled opponent of torture — but one thing he was not was a member of the resistance to President Trump and his aspirational autocracy.

Some of his longtime political allies and ideological soul mates like Bill Kristol really were and would like to believe that McCain took the same resistance journey that they did. Many journalists who are profoundly uncomfortable with both partisan politics and Trump’s stated desire to end press freedom wish McCain had been the leader of a Republican wing of anti-Trump resistance.

President Barack Obama eulogized Sen. John McCain on Saturday, setting aside their ideological differences to celebrate the late Arizona senator’s civility, service, and commitment to democratic ideals and institutions.

In pretty much any other moment, it would be heard as a banal speech — a respectful but expected statement from a former president on the life of a longtime senator. It would serve its purpose and remind Americans that we live in a democracy, one based on the principle of peaceful transfer of power. Political rivals are just that, not sworn enemies. They are all part of something much larger than themselves.

In Washington on Friday, thousands of people lined up in the sweltering heat to pay their respects to the late Sen. John McCain, whose body was lying in state at the Capitol as part of a memorial service. McCain — the legendary senator who represented Arizona in the upper chamber for more than three decades — is only the 31st person ever to be honored in this way.

Those waiting to commemorate the venerated Republican lawmaker came from across the political spectrum and used words like “hero,” “patriot,” and “icon” to describe him.

Former President Barack Obama took aim at the “petty” nature of current American politics during his eulogy honoring the late Sen. John McCain on Saturday.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insults and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” Obama said. “It is a politics that pretends to be brave, and tough, but in fact is born of fear. John called on us to be bigger and better than that.”

Arizona Sen. John McCain died last weekend from brain cancer at the age of 81, and his memorial service took place in Washington, DC on Saturday. His legacy is perhaps a complicated one, given the span of his life: He was a former Navy pilot, Vietnam prisoner of war, Republican presidential nominee, and spent 30 years as a United States senator.

After news on Friday that McCain was choosing to discontinue treatment for his cancer, a video of his time on the campaign trail in 2008 resurfaced. In it he defended Barack Obama, his rival for the presidency, in the face of constituents spouting racist conspiracies about the then-senator from Illinois.

Former President George W. Bush delivered a moving eulogy at Sen. John McCain’s memorial service on Saturday, recalling their decades-long relationship.

“For John and me, there was a personal journey,” Bush said. “Our hard-fought political history. Back in the day, he could frustrate me. And I know he would say the same thing about me. But he also made me better.”

In his final letter to America — which was read aloud by former campaign manager Rick Davis on Monday — Republican Sen. John McCain, who died last Saturday at age 81, took subtle aim at President Donald Trump while emphasizing a long-held approach to setting aside partisan divides.

McCain’s letter urged Americans to come together behind shared ideals. “Fellow Americans, that association has meant more to me than any other,” McCain writes. “I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil.”

Memorial services to honor the life of late Sen. John McCain — who passed away from brain cancer over the weekend — will begin Wednesday and continue for five days in Arizona, Washington, DC, and Maryland.

McCain had reportedly been preparing for his funeral arrangements ever since his brain cancer diagnosis last fall — including a request that President Donald Trump not be invited.

The party of Donald Trump began almost 10 years ago to the day, when John McCain tapped Sarah Palin to join his ticket.

It’s one of the most important moments of McCain’s career. He proved willing to empower a demagogue when he thought doing so would improve his political fortunes, exactly the sin so many of his colleagues in the Republican Party have committed since Trump won their party’s nomination.

Sen. John McCain died on Saturday at the age of 81, leaving open the United States Senate seat he’s occupied for 30 years.

But McCain’s seat won’t be on the ballot in November or during Tuesday’s Arizona primary — which will pick a nominee for Arizona’s other Senate seat, currently held by Sen. Jeff Flake, who is retiring. Even so, McCain’s death adds extra attention to what was already expected to be a hotly contested race.

When Sen. John McCain died Saturday of brain cancer, President Donald Trump was expected to follow certain traditions to honor a fallen public servant. It didn’t come easily.

The most glaring example was the flags: Typically, the death of a prominent sitting senator is followed followed by an effusive statement from the White House and a proclamation to lower flags around Washington, DC, to half-staff, including at the White House, until the date of interment.

It’s no easy task to capture the real Sen. John McCain — a man and a politician of contradictions. There was the witty, straight-talking maverick, and the veteran senator who voted with his party more often than not (though not as frequently as leadership would have liked). There’s the indefatigable campaigner who was capable of owning up to mistakes and defending his opponents, and the man who introduced Sarah Palin’s version of anti-establishment politics to a national stage; the Vietnam prisoner of war who wouldn’t abandon his men even in the face of extreme brutality, and the legislator with a complicated legacy on torture; and the anti-candidate who ran twice for America’s highest office. Luckily, someone’s done it well.

David Foster Wallace spent a week on the campaign trail in 2000 with McCain as he ran for the Republican presidential ticket. The nearly 25,000-word article in Rolling Stone that followed remains one of the best pieces of writing you’ll read on the late Arizona senator, even almost two decades later.

The Senate had been debating Obamacare repeal for two months, and it all came down to one night.

We already knew Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) would probably vote against the Republican plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act, even the “skinny” version that didn’t do much more than repeal the individual mandate and would, some senators hoped, set up negotiations with the House over a real health care plan. Those two had held firm in their opposition for weeks.

President Trump took a moment to offer condolences to the family of former Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who died on Saturday at the age of 81.

Noticeably absent from the tweet was anything about McCain himself. Trump famously criticized the former Republican presidential candidate and Vietnam prisoner of war during the 2016 presidential campaign.

John McCain, one of the titans of the United States Senate and a man who truly earned the moniker, died at age 81 on Saturday from brain cancer.

His colleagues’ grief was evident in their statements. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he would move to rename one of the Senate’s three office buildings after the Arizona senator:

Former President Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain’s rival in the 2008 presidential election, paid tribute to the Arizona Republican, who died at the age of 81 on Saturday. Obama called McCain a figure who had “the courage to put the greater good above our own” to which all Americans should aspire.

Obama, who defeated McCain in 2008, has shown a public affection for the senator for years. Obama in 2013 called McCain a “person of classic integrity” who’s “willing to say things regardless of the politics.” And when McCain announced his cancer diagnosis last year, Obama told him to “give it hell.”