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WASHINGTON — Presidents past and present joined members of Congress from both parties and world leaders in mourning Sen. John McCain and praising him for a lifetime of service and accomplishments.
President Donald Trump, who once criticized fellow Republican McCain for being taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, said his “deepest sympathies and respect” went out to McCain’s family.
McCain, 81, died Saturday at his ranch in Arizona after a yearlong battle with brain cancer.
Brief Statement From Trump
Trump’s brief Twitter statement said “hearts and prayers” are with the McCain family.
My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 26, 2018
Trump and McCain were at odds until the end. The president, who as a candidate in 2016 mocked McCain’s capture in Vietnam, had jabbed at the ailing senator for voting against Republican efforts to roll back President Barack Obama’s health care law.
Earlier this summer, McCain issued a blistering statement criticizing Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Emotional Tributes From Bush, Obama
Former presidents, including those who blocked McCain’s own White House ambitions, offered emotional tributes.
Obama, who triumphed over McCain in 2008, said that despite their differences, McCain and he shared a “fidelity to something higher — the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed.”
Obama said they “saw our political battles, even, as a privilege, something noble, an opportunity to serve as stewards of those high ideals at home, and to advance them around the world.”
Former President George W. Bush, who defeated McCain for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, called McCain a “man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order” and a “friend whom I’ll deeply miss.”
Bush and Obama are among those expected to speak at McCain’s funeral. McCain is expected to be remembered at ceremonies in Arizona and Washington before being buried, likely this coming week, at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery on a peninsula overlooking the Severn River in Annapolis, Maryland.
Gen. Petraeus: He ‘Had the Backs’ of Service Members
Retired Gen. David Petraeus is honoring Sen. John McCain as a distinguished veteran who always “had the backs” of military service members.
Petraeus, a former CIA director who previously oversaw coalition forces in Iraq, tells ABC’s “This Week” that McCain was committed to ensuring that those who fought the wars after Sept. 11 “had what was needed to prevail.”
He says McCain was also very forthright in standing up against torture, working to limit the enhanced interrogation of detainees.
Petraeus noted that an extraordinary moment of McCain’s military career was when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and was offered freedom by his captors, but “he would not break faith with his fellow prisoners.”
World Leaders Praise McCain
Tributes poured in from around the globe.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted in English that McCain “was a true American hero. He devoted his entire life to his country.” Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said McCain’s support for the Jewish state “never wavered. It sprang from his belief in democracy and freedom.” And Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, called McCain “a tireless fighter for a strong trans-Atlantic alliance. His significance went well beyond his own country.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called McCain a “fascinating personality.”
“He would occasionally be in a bad place with various members, including myself, and when this would blow over it was like nothing ever happened,” McConnell said Saturday after a GOP state dinner in Lexington, Kentucky. “He also had a wicked sense of humor and it made every tense moment come out better.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who developed a friendship with McCain while they served together in the Senate, said the Arizona lawmaker will “cast a long shadow.”
“The spirit that drove him was never extinguished: we are here to commit ourselves to something bigger than ourselves,” Biden said
The Senate’s top Democrat, New York’s Chuck Schumer, said he wants to rename the Senate building that housed McCain’s suite of offices after McCain.
“As you go through life, you meet few truly great people. John McCain was one of them,” Schumer said. “Maybe most of all, he was a truth teller – never afraid to speak truth to power in an era where that has become all too rare.”

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