White House wobbles on USA flag after McCain death

John McCain until he is laid to rest and ordered flags to fly at half-staff and delegating senior officials to the funeral. The White House flag was eventually re-lowered, and shortly thereafter President Trump issued his first non-Twitter statement – almost 44 hours after McCain’s death was reported.

But they were raised on Monday morning, leading to criticism that Trump was unable to put aside political differences to honor McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam who went on to serve 35 years in Congress. Trump ignored reporters’ repeated questions about McCain at White House gatherings on Monday, but late Monday afternoon the flags were lowered again to half-staff.

Mr Trump’s statement broke his silence about the senator’s death, with his remembrance restricted to a tweet sending condolences to Mr McCain’s family.

It was reported that the US President was offered to issue a eulogy that would heap praise on the Senator, with whom Trump had been at odds before and during his time in the office.

In a letter, the national commander of the American Legion, Denise Rohan, urged the White House to “follow long-established protocol following the death of prominent government officials” and honour Mr McCain.

“The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is hard to calculate”, McCain said at the time. “Our hearts go out to (his wife) Cindy and all the family during this hard time”.

“Clearly they had a tenuous relationship”, Graham said, “but he’s not the only one to have a tense relationship with John McCain”. “There really is no room in the McCain family today to focus on anything but him”, said Rick Davis, family spokesman, in response to the White House flags, TicToc by Bloomberg reports. We never hide from history.

“Was McCain a hero?” he asked as Trump was meeting with the president of Kenya.

It said: “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe”. McCain was also alarmed by the rise of far-right populism in Europe, and the British break with the European Union that Trump has heralded.

For his part, Arpaio pivoted from praising John McCain to complaining that Cindy McCain had blocked him on Twitter.

“It’s outrageous that the White House would mark American hero John McCain’s death with a two-sentence tweet, making no mention of his heroic and inspiring life”, said AMVETS National Executive Director Joe Chenelly.

Friction increased earlier this year after word surfaced that a West Wing aide had been dismissive of McCain during a closed-door meeting. “I think it’s the same feeling for all Vietnamese people as he has greatly contributed to the development of Vietnam-U.S. relations”, Duyet was quoted as saying.