Saturday’s Washington D.C. memorial service for Sen. John McCain will see two former presidents, a former secretary of state, senators and family members remembering the six-term senator, Vietnam prisoner of war, husband and father.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will be among those eulogizing McCain at the Washington National Cathedral. The memorial service, part of McCain’s cross-country funeral procession, is an invitation-only event.
>>McCain's pallbearers include Warren Beatty, Russian politician
Someone not on the guests' list is President Donald Trump. McCain requested that Trump not be part of any of the services that have taken place during the past week.
McCain died Aug. 25 at age 81 from brain cancer.
McCain’s body will be taken by motorcade to the National Cathedral Saturday morning. Around 8:30 a.m., McCain’s widow, Cindy, will lay a wreath at the Vietnam Veteran Memorial.
>>Where will John McCain be buried and what will the service be like?
The memorial service will begin around 10 a.m. ET.
Live updates:
Friday: McCain was remembered Friday by his former colleagues in the U.S. House and Senate. McCain served in both legislative bodies during his 40 years in Washington. McCain's family, including his 106-year-old mother, listen to tributes from Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Vice President Mike Pence.
Saturday
8:35 a.m.: McCain's body is being removed from the Capitol Rotunda and will be transported through the streets of Washington D.C. to the National Cathedral – about six miles away.
Along the route, the procession will stop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial where his widow, Cindy, will lay a wreath. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a 2-acre area located along the National Mall in Washington.
The names of nearly 58,000 men and women either killed or listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War are carved into the granite wall.
8:57 a.m.: People have lined the route from the Capitol to the Vietnam Memorial to pay respects to McCain as his procession passes. A Navy sailor is waiting at the memorial with a wreath. The procession has stopped at the memorial.
9 a.m.: The family, along with Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House chief of staff John Kelly, are at the memorial.
9:20 a.m.: People are filling the National Cathedral for McCain's service. His mother, Roberta, is being seated. She is 106 years old. Former Sen. Bob Dole, 95, is in the audience, as well.
9:26 a.m.: The hearse has arrived at the National Cathedral.
9:43 a.m.: Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama are in the Cathedral along with first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama. Bush and Obama will be giving eulogies during the service.
9:54 a.m.: Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, are in attendance at the service.
10:04 a.m.: McCain's family is being seated in the Cathedral, and the service is beginning. McCain's coffin is being brought in followed by his pallbearers.
10:12 a.m.: The hymn, "Eternal Father, Strong to Save" (The Navy Hymn), is being sung by the congregation.
10:18 a.m.: The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, is opening the ceremony. "Our faith tells us that beyond this life is more life."
10: 34 a.m.: Meghan McCain gives an emotional tribute to her father, saying, "He was a great fire who burned bright."
She began her tribute by saying, “We gather 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.”
She went on to say:
“The most important of his roles was as a father. … John McCain was defined by love. His love was the love of a father…. He was endlessly present for us. His ambitions for us was to be better than him.
“When my father got sick and I asked him what he wanted me to do with this eulogy he said, “Show them how tough you are.
“The America of John McCain is the America of Abraham Lincoln.”
Referencing President Donald Trump, though not by name, McCain said, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
“Dad I love you, I always have. You loved me and showed me what love must be.”
10:38 a.m.: The poem "Requiem" is being ready by McCain's son, Jimmy. "Requiem," a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, was taught to McCain by his father. He read the poem at his father's funeral. This is the poem:
“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
10:54 a.m.: Joe Lieberman said of his former colleague, that McCain taught him jokes he, "would never have learned otherwise." McCain was "welcomed by the men and women in the armed services as he traveled around the world," Lieberman said.
He recalls that McCain was a leader in the Congress in normalizing relations with Vietnam.
Lieberman said McCain’s Senate speech after he was diagnosed with cancer and his vote against the Republican health care bill was a strike against partisanship by both parties.
Lieberman is a former senator who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000. McCain said later that he had wanted Lieberman to be his running mate in the 2008 campaign for president.
11 a.m.: The New York Times reports that President Trump left the White House in a motorcade about the time Meghan McCain was giving the eulogy for her father in which she chastised the president.
11:04 a.m.: John McCain was a "gift of destiny," says Henry Kissinger, 95, former secretary of state under President Richard Nixon. "He was an engaged warrior, fighting for his causes with ebullience, with courage, and with humility" ... "John was all about hope."
“Integrity has no written code ... it fulfills a cause, not a person.”
11:17 a.m.: "Amazing Grace" is being performed by the U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club, accompanied by a bagpipe player.
11:21 a.m.: Former President George W. Bush is speaking now. He says of McCain, "In one epic life was written the history of our country." He talks about a presidential debate in Arizona where McCain yelled at him to "relax," in the moments before the event.
"John detested the abuse of power. …. The world is smaller for his departure."
11:30 a.m.: Former President Barack Obama is speaking now.
11:49 a.m.: He didn't "want a pre-packaged" ceremony, Obama said. "What better way to get a last laugh than to have George and me say nice things about him to a national audience."
“For all our differences ... John came to understand the long-standing admiration I had for him.” … “Some values transcend party” and he understood that Obama says.
He says he was grateful, “but not surprised” when he defended Obama after a supporter called him a Muslim at a campaign rally.
“We never doubted we were on the same team.”
He derides, “A politics that pretends to be brave and tough but is actually born of fear.”
11:50 a.m.: "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is being performed.
11:57 a.m.: Sen. Kelly Ayotte reads from the Book of Wisdom, 3:1-5, 9.
12:05 p.m.: McCain's daughter, Sidney, is reading 2 Corinthians 5:6-8: "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
7 For we walk by faith, not by sight
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
12:12 p.m.: Sen. Lindsey Graham is reading John 15:12-13, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."
12:16 p.m.: For McCain, Father Edward A. Reese, says, "Every human being deserved to be treated justly."
12:24 p.m.: Renee Fleming is performing "Danny Boy." The song was requested by McCain. It 's a song set to the tune of an Irish folk song. Some of the lyrics:
“But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,
If I am dead, as dead I well may be,
You'll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!”
12:35 p.m.: "America the Beautiful" is performed by a children's choir and a benediction given. McCain's coffin is being removed by an honor guard. His family is following.
Credit: Pool
Credit: Pool
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