WASHINGTON — The White House flag returned to full staff Monday as the nation mourned Arizona Senator John McCain, in stark contrast to honors the late lawmaker received in other parts of Washington.
Flags remained at half staff along the National Mall, around the Washington Monument and at the Capitol on Monday to honor McCain, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump. Flags at the White House were lowered on Saturday night after McCain’s death and raised again Sunday, the bare minimum required in the U.S. Code.
Presidents have often signed proclamations lowering flags to half-staff from the day a sitting senator dies through the day he or she is buried. Former President Barack Obama issued such an order for the late senators Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, among others.
Trump’s apparent snub is a sign of his continued disdain for McCain, with whom he first picked a fight in the summer of 2015, declaring that the Navy veteran was “not a war hero” for spending five years being tortured in a Vietnamese prison and refusing advantages offered to him because his father was a prominent military leader. “I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said three years ago.
Since then, Trump had refused calls to change his tune and he and McCain have clashed on a range of policy issues. Trump repeatedly groused in public about what turned out to be McCain’s final vote in the Senate last summer, blocking an Affordable Care Act repeal measure.
Trump’s only public comment on the six-term Republican senator and former GOP presidential nominee was a brief tweet hours after McCain’s death Saturday sending condolences to his family. The Washington Post reported late Sunday that Trump rejected issuing a statement praising McCain’s life and heroism.
Had Trump issued a statement honoring McCain, “the media would criticize it and say it is not consistent with the other things he said in the past and become a story about the president,” former White House legislative affairs director Marc Short said Monday on CNN. “I think it’s actually respectful of the president to give it space and distance and to allow the family its opportunity to celebrate John McCain’s life.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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