John McCain says he 'doesn’t want Donald Trump at his funeral'

Family has requested Mike Pence's attendance instead, according to reports

Senator John McCain uses a wheelchair on Capitol Hill (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Ailing US Senator John McCain doesn’t want President Donald Trump at his funeral, according to multiple reports.

Sources close to the senator from Arizona said this week that his family had asked the White House to send Vice President Mike Pence to the service instead.

Mr McCain has been battling an aggressive form of brain cancer for nearly a year, after being diagnosed with glioblastoma in July. His family has started making funeral plans, despite his son-in-law saying the 81-year-old was “chatty and walking around” at the Arizona ranch where he is recovering.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush are slated to be eulogists at the funeral, a source close to Mr McCain told NBC News. The ceremony will likely be held at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

Both NBC and the New York Times reported that the McCain family was not planning to have Mr Trump at the event. The two men have sparred frequently since Mr Trump emerged as a candidate in the 2016 race, on everything from Obamacare to Mr McCain’s military service.

Mr McCain helped kill GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare with his pivotal Senate vote last summer, shortly after he was diagnosed with cancer. The senator has also spoken out against Mr Trump’s comments in the infamous Access Hollywood tape, and the president's travel ban.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, has mocked the years Mr McCain spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and called his Obamacare vote a “horrible, horrible thing”.

Mr McCain reportedly plans to critique the president in his forthcoming book, saying the president is “uninterested in the moral character of world leaders and their regimes”.

“The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values,” he writes, according to a copy obtained by the New York Times. “Flattery secures his friendship, criticism his enmity.”

Mr Trump did not attend former first lady Barbara Bush’s funeral in Houston, Texas last month. The White House said the decision was made in order to “avoid disruptions due to added security, and out of respect for the Bush Family and friends attending the service”.

Melania Trump went to the funeral instead, along with Presidents George HW Bush, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, and former first lady Hillary Clinton.

Mr McCain has not returned to the Senate since December. He is recovering at home, taking visits from friends such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Ben Domenech, the senator's son-in-law, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Mr McCain is “very grateful for the chances and fortune that he’s experienced in life. He’s reflecting at the end on a lot of different things.”

“We appreciate all of the support that we’ve been given by a lot of different folks who have come out and met with him over the past couple of weeks,” he added.