At the memorial service he had carefully planned, John McCain managed to deliver a final and defiant rebuke to the man who wasn’t there, whose name was never uttered.

President Donald Trump was one of the few of the nation’s political elite, past and present, who weren’t among the more than 3,000 mourners at the National Cathedral for an emotional, affectionate, often humorous and sometimes fierce outpouring in honor of the Arizona senator who was twice defeated in his efforts to win the White House.

In what amounted to a statement of fundamental American principles, he had asked the two men who vanquished those aspirations to deliver eulogies: Former President George W. Bush, who won the Republican nomination over McCain in 2000, and former President Barack Obama, who won the presidency against him in 2008.

More: Cindy McCain weeps during powerful rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ 

Before a word was said, his invitation and their acceptance in itself signaled an endorsement of the importance of civility, humility and bipartisanship – qualities that now seem to be a rare commodity in the capital.

Obama’s closing words were among the most direct about the current state of American politics, including the relentless partisanship that divides Congress into competing party fortresses and the divisive rhetoric that has become the signature of the current president.

More: Meghan McCain jabs Trump, says ‘America was always great’

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

Soon after the service had begun, Trump departed the White House dressed for golf and wearing a white “Make America Great Again” cap. He already had posted morning tweets denouncing “the corruption” of the FBI and the Justice Department. By the time he arrived at Trump National Golf Club in Loudoun County, Virginia, he had tweeted his unhappiness with Canada and his willingness to abandon NAFTA. “We will be far better off,” he said of the free-trade agreement.

Three miles away, at the cathedral, former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was speaking from the lectern about his departed friend.

The message from the cathedral to the president was unmistakable, a declaration of the Washington establishment that was surely unprecedented.

“McCain staged his death like the final act of Shakespeare’s Richard III, every legitimate force in the state, living and dead, combined against the wicked king,” tweeted David Frum, a Republican speechwriter in the George W. Bush White House. 

Trump and McCain were members of the same party but, it often seemed, from different worlds. During the 2015 campaign, in a jaw-dropping jab, Trump said McCain was “not a war hero” even though he had spent more than five years as a POW in Vietnam. “I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump said. When McCain died last week of a brain tumor, at age 81, Trump delayed for two days before relenting to criticism and issuing a statement praising him, and ordering American flags left at half-staff until the senator’s internment Sunday. 

Present in the pews were not only three former presidents – Obama, Bush and Bill Clinton. There were also all four of the national candidates from the bitterly disputed 2000 election – Bush and Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Lieberman. Others who have felt the pain of losing presidential races were there: Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Bob Dole. There were at least three Nobel Prize winners. And the current congressional leadership, Republican and Democratic, all of whom had their battles with McCain. 

Most wrenching was the eulogy delivered by Meghan McCain, remarks that were emotional and intense. She spoke with force about her father even as she fought back tears.

“We gather to honor the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who live lives of comfort and privilege,” she said. 

“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

With that, the congregation in the sanctuary broke into applause.

 

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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump went about his day like any other Saturday – tweets and time at his golf club in Virginia, as John McCain was honored at the National Cathedral.

Trump got into his motorcade and left the White House around 10:30 a.m., wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and white MAGA hat. At the same time, former president George W. Bush and Barack Obama along with many other notable Washington leaders attended memorial services for the late Arizona senator – to which Trump was not invited.

Trump arrived at Trump National Golf Club in Loudoun County, Virginia amid a morning of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the FBI and threatening Canada.

“There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the new NAFTA deal. If we don’t make a fair deal for the U.S. after decades of abuse, Canada will be out,” Trump tweeted.

However, Trump’s tweets made no mention of McCain, whose family took jabs at the president and his campaign motto during the services.

“The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great,” daughter Meghan McCain said.

“We gather here 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, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” she said. “He was a great fire who burned bright. In the past few days my family and I have heard from so many of those Americans who stood in the warmth and light of his fire.”

Trump, who had an ongoing feud with McCain and his family, was not invited to any of the senator’s memorial services throughout the week. Vice President Mike Pence and Chief of Staff John Kelly, among others, attended the various services on behalf of the White House .

More: Meghan McCain says father’s ‘America was always great’ during speech at National Cathedral service

More: George W. Bush: McCain ‘was honest, no matter who it offended. Presidents were not spared’

More: John McCain memorial: Obama says McCain was ‘a warrior, a statesman, a patriot’

In an interview with Bloomberg News earlier this week, Trump defended his response to McCain’s death, saying “I’ve done everything that they requested.”

The president sparked controversy when he raised flags at half-staff above the White House just two days after McCain died. After public outcry, the flags were lowered again.

Trump also acknowledged his disagreements with McCain. “We had our disagreements and they were very strong disagreements,” the president told Bloomberg. “I disagreed with many of the things that I assume he believed in.”

Maybe the most infamous moment in the feud came during the 2016 presidential election when Trump attacked McCain’s war record.

“He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said in July 2015. “I like people that weren’t captured, OK?”

Contributing: Doug Stanglin and Christal Hayes

 

 

 

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Sao Paulo, Brazil – The decision of Brazil’s top electoral court to bar former president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva from contesting the country’s polls in October has forced his party – and a large chunk of the Brazilian electorate – into a rethink.

After a marathon session, which began on Friday and concluded in the early hours of Saturday, the Superior Electoral Court deemed Lula’s candidacy to be ineligible under Brazil’s “Clean Slate” law, which forbids those with appeals court convictions from running for office.

The 72-year-old, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption and money laundering, has been a clear leader in all opinion polls held so far in the run-up to the October 7 elections.

His leftist Workers’ Party, which has promised to “fight through all means to secure his candidacy”, is expected to file an extraordinary appeal to the Federal Supreme Court this weekend. 

Ricardo Ribeiro, a political analyst at MCM Consultores, told Al Jazeera that the success of the court appeal depends on which judge hears the case. 

“If it goes to [Supreme Court Justice] Ricardo Lewandowski, there is a chance that he will grant an injunction in favour of Lula’s candidacy,” said Ribeiro.

What happens in Lula’s absence?

Still, the Workers’ Party is expected to decide on a new candidate to replace Lula – while its Federal Supreme Court request is pending.

According to the electoral court decision, the party has 10 days from Saturday to nominate a new presidential candidate, with all signs pointing towards Fernando Haddad, Lula’s running mate and a former mayor of Sao Paulo.

A party meeting is scheduled for Monday in the city of Curitiba, when Haddad’s candidacy is likely to be confirmed. 

If Lula’s Supreme Court appeal is successful, the Workers’ Party will still be able to put the former president back on the ballot.

If not, the party will face the uphill task of transferring Lula’s votes to Haddad, a politician who is not instantly recognisable around the country and currently polls at just four percent. 

“It’s the only strategy available to them,” said Ribeiro. “But Lula’s popularity means there is a good chance it will be successful.”

Indeed, Haddad can take heart in the fact that recent polls show 31 percent of the electorate would vote for any candidate endorsed by Lula, which would be more than enough to propel him into a potential second-round runoff with Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right candidate with the Social Liberty Party.

Far-right candidate a frontrunner

With Lula’s removal from the presidential race, Bolsonaro, a former army captain and Rio de Janeiro congressman since 1991, has emerged as a frontrunner. 

Due to the long-perceived inevitability of Lula’s candidacy being blocked by the electoral courts, major pollsters have been conducting two different scenarios: one which includes the former president, and one without him.

In opinion polls without Lula, Bolsonaro appears ahead of all competitors, with a vote share varying between 20 and 22 percent.

Bolsonaro has managed to present himself as a credible outsider candidate, despite a track record of homophobic, racist and sexist statements.

The far-right politician has a belligerent stance on crime, declaring in a recent TV  interview that police officers who “kill 10, 15, or 20 people” should be rewarded and not punished.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist and professor of international relations at Rio de Janeiro State University, stressed that for a significant portion of voters, “Bolsonaro has been able to establish himself as the spokesperson for the feelings of anger and revolt which many Brazilians feel today”.

Bolsonaro is popular among young, educated, middle-class male voters. While his support appears to have hit a plateau, it has not yet dropped, suggesting that he has a solid voter base, which is likely to push him into the expected runoff, scheduled to take place on October 28.

To avoid a second round of voting, a candidate would need to win more than 50 percent of the votes on October 7.

What makes 2018 election different

In six of the seven presidential elections held since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985, the two candidates with the most votes have come from the centre-left Workers’ Party and the centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party – a trend set to be bucked in the upcoming election.

Geraldo Alckmin, the Social Democrat candidate who is seen as “market-friendly”, is severely lagging behind in the polls, despite having the support of a vast coalition of centrist and centre-right parties.

Alckmin is also considered as the candidate of the establishment, a particularly damning title given that the current government, under President Michel Temer, is hugely unpopular.

Alckmin’s broad coalition may yet work in his favour, benefitting from the start of election campaign messages broadcasted on television and radio.

In Brazil, free airtime is distributed among the parties in accordance with their number of seats in the lower house of Congress, with Alckmin’s numerous alliances giving him the lion’s share.

In each commercial block of 12 minutes and 30 seconds, the Social Democrat candidate will be allotted five minutes and 32 seconds. In comparison, Bolsonaro will receive just eight seconds.

“Alckmin’s biggest opponent isn’t the Workers’ Party, as it has been in years past,” said Santoro.

“Now, it’s Jair Bolsonaro.”

As the solemn motorcade carrying the body of Sen. John McCain made its way past the Washington monument Saturday morning, within eyesight of the White House, President Donald Trump was busily churning out a series of tweets attacking the FBI, Department of Justice, the news media and Canada.

Trump made no reference to the senator’s passing, even as the luminaries of Washington —including three former presidents — began gathering at the National Cathedral for a memorial service.

Trump, who McCain pointedly declined to invite to the service, began the morning tweetstorm at 7:19 a.m., with a slap at the state of the news media just as Fox, CNN and MSNBC were beginning to roll out their wall-to-wall coverage of the day’s events.

Two minutes later, the president took a swipe at Canada, which declined to sign a trade agreement on Friday, saying, “I love Canada, but they’ve taken advantage of our Country for man years.”

After an hour’s pause, at 8:26, one minute after MSNBC began its live coverage of the McCain family gathering at the steps of the Senate, Trump cranked out his third tweet of the morning. It was so long, it turned into a five-parter, long enough for McCain’s motorcade to make a brief stop at the Vietnam Memorial and all the way to the Cathedral.

The topic, on McCain’s final day in Washington, D.C., involved the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. He quoted from a Friday night appearance on Fox’s Hannity program by Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group. Fitton was discussing a Judicial Watch response to a court-filing by the Justice Department regarding wiretap warrants on Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

At 8:32 am., as the casket carrying McCain’s body was being carried from the Senate Rotunda to a hearse for the trip down Constitution Avenue, Trump unleashed part two of the FISA tweet, this time picking Fitton’s description of the leadership of the DOJ and FBI, who are both Trump appointees, as being “completely out to lunch.”

During a 47-minute pause, the McCain motorcade rolled past the Justice Department building, then passed between the White House, on the right, and the Washington Monument, on the left, ringed with flags at half-staff in McCain’s honor.

Silence from the Trump twitter-feed as the cable channels showed Cindy McCain, widow of  the late senator, standing before a wreath in McCain’s memory at the Vietnam Memorial wall. She was escorted by Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, and the secretary of defense, James Mattis.

At 9:19 a.m., as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump arrived at the National Cathedral, where they were greeted by longtime McCain pal Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Trump fired off the the third segment of the FISA tweets, with quotes on the “Fake Dossier” purportedly containing incrimination information on the president.

As the motorcade resumed the trip to the National Cathedral, Trump jumped back into his morning tweeting with the fourth part on the “Fake Dossier,” this time including a swipe at Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who, coincidentally was at that moment in the cathedral preparing to deliver a eulogy for McCain at the senator’s request.

At  9:27 a.m, Trump tweeted a quote from conservative commentator Dan Bongino who raises the specter of an Obama administration “police state” going after Trump.

As cameras panned the cathedral gathering, including such members of the Washington elite as former presidents Obama, Clinton, and George W. Bush, along with Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Trump nemesis Ohio gov. John Kasich, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and even CNN anchor Jake Tapper, Trump took a break.

Trump, who tweeted from the White House, did not stay long enough to watch the McCain services from the president’s mansion.

Instead, according to the media pool report, Trump left at 10:35 a.m., during the final moments of Meghan McCain’s emotional eulogy to her father.

It appeared he was making his normal Saturday trek to his golf course in Virginia, despite heavy rains in the area Friday night. He was wearig a white shirt-sleeve shirt and a white hat emblazoned with his trademark slogan “Make America Great Again.”

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