In response, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the White House decision means “the case for obstruction of Congress continues to build.”

Schiff also said Defense Secretary Mark Esper told investigators Sunday that he would comply with a subpoena request, only to be “countermanded” by a higher authority.

Trump has said that without a vote, the ongoing impeachment inquiry is “illegitimate.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Tuesday that she’s not going to call for a formal House vote on impeachment.

“We’re not here to call bluffs,” she said. “This is not a game to us.”

The spot where she stood, on 26 acres, is where she and her ailing husband, Sen. John McCain, had discussed building a “gathering place” for his archives, hiking and perhaps candidate debates — but especially for listening.

“We had planned a library,” the senator’s widow said in a telephone interview this week. “But it will also be a focal point for gathering to talk about these issues to have honest and real discussions about them.”

A year after McCain’s death from brain cancer, the library is one way his family members are fighting to shape how the world remembers the Vietnam War hero and veteran senator and to prevent President Donald Trump from doing it for them.

The counter-programming also includes videos with Cindy McCain and son Jack McCain and its own Twitter hashtag, #ActsofCivility, in which the McCains ask Americans to perform and post affirmative acts of listening to one another and agreeing to disagree.

The campaign is a rejoinder to Trump’s smash mouth style and his fight against the late senator. As a candidate, Trump derided McCain, a prisoner of war for five years during Vietnam, saying that he preferred heroes who weren’t captured.

Even now in campaign rallies, Trump complains about how McCain turned a thumb down in 2017 and sank the GOP’s effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

The grudge continued. In May, the White House told the Navy to keep the guided-missile destroyer John S. McCain out of sight to avoid offending the president during a trip to Japan.

Trump said he knew nothing about moving the warship and blamed the move on a “well-meaning” official aware of the president’s dislike for the late senator.

Cindy McCain last month attended the ship’s recommissioning in Yokosuka, Japan, an event she said was scheduled before “the controversy.”

Defining McCain’s legacy poses challenges in the Trump era, especially for the family of a man who never became a president. Trump has the bully pulpit, a passionate Twitter following of tens of millions and a talent for branding opponents. History also will give him some say in the way McCain is remembered.

“I was never a fan of John McCain, and I never will be,” Trump said in March.

A presidential spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The McCains and their allies have the senator’s story, told by former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush at his funeral and preserved already in papers being collected by Arizona State University, which donated the land for the library. They’ve also got plans and a determination to direct the storytelling.

“The only person that defines John McCain’s legacy is John McCain,” Jack McCain said.

John McCain, who wrote a book about the end of his life, planned his funeral and even wrote a post-mortem statement read by a longtime aide, showed his surviving friends and family how he wanted to be remembered and how he did not.

“John McCain did not define himself by any losses,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who commiserated with McCain after the two GOP presidential nominees lost to Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Like the library, McCain’s legacy is still somewhat aspirational. Upcoming books and other materials are likely to flesh it out.

So will The McCain Institute, a nonprofit aimed at leadership development, human rights and combating human trafficking.

“He’s only been dead a year, and legacy is something that’s built over a great deal of time,” the senator’s son said in an interview. “I personally hope that his legacy is defined by his civility.”

In that year, McCain’s peers especially have given thought to what sticks with them and what it means.

Retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, who served in Vietnam while McCain was imprisoned and who worked under him and later with him, said McCain’s reconciliation with Vietnam helped Jones forgive his enemies of war.

“He had more reason than I did to carry a burning hatred for his captors for the rest of his life,” said Jones, who served in leadership positions under Republican and Democratic presidents while McCain was in the Senate. “When he essentially extended the hand of peace, that caused me to do the same thing. I got rid of my demons.”

For now, the McCains say they are still grappling with his absence. Cindy McCain said she is focused on her family and on the impending birth of a grandchild. But grief, she says, sometimes washes over her.

Jack McCain, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, was in Afghanistan before and after his father’s death and insulated from much of the aftermath. He’s moved from active duty to the Navy Reserves and is home in Maryland now, with a 2-year-old son and his wife, Renee, trying to figure out what comes next.

“I’m attempting to find a way to reorder my life without the person who had been basically my role model, my leader, the person I turned to when I needed sound advice,” he said.

Running for public office, he said, is not part of the plan.

As for legacy building in the Trump era, McCain’s allies say it’s a long game.

“When the president talks about John McCain, and the way he does, I think people just click off,” Jones said. “They just turn him off.”

Romney, who’s had his own battles with the president, said McCain’s public life is too long for one president to define.

“I don’t think the family’s going to worry too much what President Trump has to say about Senator McCain,” he said Tuesday. “It’s a 50-year-plus legacy that is not going to be changed or obstructed by virtue of some tweets.”

Said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island: “I do think that in the long run what John stood for aligns so much better with our American values, and he will have the last laugh over Trumpism.”

The caucus, bipartisan and including men, would be a first.

There are more than a dozen military and veteran-related caucuses in the House, but none dedicated to the specific needs of women who serve. The still-forming Congressional Servicewomen & Women Veterans Caucus, which organizers said Wednesday includes 50 members of Congress, is part of this group’s growing network of influence in national politics.

Organizers also are aiming to recruit more female veterans to run for office in 2020.

“It’s a long time coming,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., an Air Force veteran and third-generation service member who is also among the historic class of House freshmen that delivered a Democratic majority in last year’s elections.

She recalls leaving the military in 1991, after she and her husband had a baby, because she could not afford child care in Boston, where they were living. “What I’ve learned nearly 30 years later is that it hasn’t changed.”

But child care isn’t the only concern of the group, which Houlahan hopes will eventually include senators who have served. Educating women on the veterans’ health care and other services that are available to them also is on the agenda, as well as delivering and expanding on those services.

In the next 25 years, the number of female former service members is expected to nearly double and will account for nearly 1 in 5 living veterans. That’s because the number of enlisted women serving is eight times more than it was when the draft ended, in 1973, according to statistics released from Houlahan’s group. Women now account for 18 percent of the officer corps, up from 8 percent.

Female veterans face unique health-related challenges, according to letters the future caucus members have sent to Army Secretary Mark T. Esper and Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer. The caucus wants all the services to follow the model of an Air Force pilot program that offers four hours of training on the health services offered by the VA to women leaving the military.

Joining Houlahan at a news conference Wednesday were Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii; Elaine Luria, D-Va.; Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J.; Don Bacon, R-Neb.; and Gil Cisneros, D-Calif. The caucus is awaiting final approval in the House and could become official as soon as this week.

“We did not want to be the last people to fill these shoes” as female veterans and members of Congress, Luria said. “We’re here to stand behind these young women.”

Houlahan, Luria and Sherrill were part of a record number of female veterans with military or intelligence experience who ran for Congress last year. They’re raising money together for potential candidates in 2020 with military experience through Service First Women’s Victory Fund and New Politics, a bipartisan organization.

After three days of remembrance in the capital city, the Air Force plane with Bush’s casket left for a final service in Houston and burial Thursday at his family plot on the presidential library grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station. His final resting place is alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years, and Robin Bush, the daughter who died of leukemia at age 3.

His plane, which often serves as Air Force One, arrived at Ellington Field outside Houston in late afternoon.

The national funeral service at the cathedral was a tribute to a president, a patriarch and a faded political era that prized military service and public responsibility. It was laced with indirect comparisons to President Donald Trump but was not consumed by them, as speakers focused on Bush’s public life and character — with plenty of cracks about his goofy side, too.

Trump sat with his wife, a trio of ex-presidents and their wives, several of the group sharp critics of his presidency and one of them, Hillary Clinton, his 2016 Democratic foe. Apart from courteous nods and some handshakes, there was little interaction between Trump and the others.

George W. Bush broke down briefly at the end of his eulogy while invoking the daughter his parents lost in 1953 and his mother, who died in April. He said he took comfort in knowing “Dad is hugging Robin and holding Mom’s hand again.”

The family occupied the White House for a dozen years — the 41st president defeated after one term, the 43rd serving two. Jeb Bush stepped up to try to extend that run but fell short when Trump won the 2016 Republican primaries.

The elder Bush was “the last great-soldier statesman,” historian Jon Meacham said in his eulogy, “our shield” in dangerous times.

But he took a lighter tone, too, noting that Bush, campaigning in a crowd in a department store, once shook hands with a mannequin. Rather than flushing in embarrassment, he simply quipped, “Never know. Gotta ask.”

Meacham recounted how comedian Dana Carvey once said the key to doing an impersonation of Bush was “Mr. Rogers trying to be John Wayne.”

None of that would be a surprise to Bush. Meacham had read his eulogy to him, said Bush spokesman Jim McGrath, and Bush responded to it with the crack: “That’s a lot about me, Jon.”

The congregation at the cathedral, filled with foreign leaders and diplomats, Americans of high office and others touched by Bush’s life, rose for the arrival of the casket, accompanied by clergy of faiths from around the world. In their row together, Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton stood with their spouses and all placed their hands over their hearts.

Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming, regaled the congregation with stories from his years as Bush’s friend in Washington. More seriously, he recalled that when he went through a rough patch in the political game, Bush conspicuously stood by him against the advice of aides. “You would have wanted him on your side,” he said.

Simpson said Bush “loved a good joke — the richer the better. And he threw his head back and gave that great laugh, but he never, ever could remember a punchline. And I mean never.”

George W. Bush turned the humor back on the acerbic ex-senator, saying of the late president: “He placed great value on a good joke, so he chose Simpson to speak.”

Meacham praised Bush’s call to volunteerism, placing his “1,000 points of light” alongside Abraham Lincoln’s call to honor “the better angels of our nature” in the American rhetorical canon. Meacham called those lines “companion verses in America’s national hymn.”

Trump had mocked “1,000 points of light” last summer at a rally, saying “What the hell is that? Has anyone ever figured that one out? And it was put out by a Republican, wasn’t it?”

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney praised Bush as a strong world leader who helped oversee the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped bring about the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, signed into law by his successor, Clinton.

With Trump, a bitter NAFTA critic, seated in the front row, Mulroney hailed the “largest and richest free trade area in the history of the world.” The three countries have agreed on a revised trade agreement pushed by Trump.

Earlier, a military band played “Hail to the Chief” as Bush’s casket was carried down the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where he had lain in state. Family members looked on as servicemen fired off a cannon salute.

His hearse was then driven in a motorcade to the cathedral ceremony, slowing in front of the White House, the route lined with people much of the way, bundled in winter hats and taking photos.

Waiting for his arrival inside, Trump shook hands with Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who greeted him by saying “Good morning.” Trump did not shake hands with Bill and Hillary Clinton, who looked straight ahead.

Bill Clinton and Mrs. Obama smiled and chatted as music played. Carter was seated silently next to Hillary Clinton in the cavernous cathedral. Obama cracked up laughing at someone’s quip. Vice President Mike Pence shook Carter’s hand.

Trump tweeted Wednesday that the day marked “a celebration for a great man who has led a long and distinguished life.”

Bush’s death makes Carter, also 94 but more than 100 days younger, the oldest living ex-president.

Following the cathedral service, the hearse and its long motorcade drove to the National Mall to pass by the World War II Memorial, a nod to the late president’s service as a World War II Navy pilot, then transferred his remains at Joint Base Andrews for the flight home to Texas with members of his family.

Bush will lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before his burial Thursday.

On Tuesday, soldiers, citizens in wheelchairs and long lines of others on foot wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view Bush’s casket and honor a president whose legacy included a landmark law affirming the rights of the disabled. Former Sen. Bob Dole, a compatriot in war, peace and political struggle, steadied himself out of his wheelchair and saluted his old friend and one-time rival.

Trump ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-staff for 30 days.

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

As at notable moments in his life, Bush brought together Republicans and Democrats in his death, and not only the VIPs.

Members of the public who never voted for the man waited in the same long lines as the rest, attesting that Bush possessed the dignity and grace that deserved to be remembered by their presence on a cold overcast day in the capital.

“I’m just here to pay my respects,” said Jane Hernandez, a retired physician in the heavily Democratic city and suburbs. “I wasn’t the biggest fan of his presidency, but all in all he was a good sincere guy doing a really hard job as best he could.”

Bush’s service dog, Sully, was brought to the viewing, too — his main service these last months since Barbara Bush’s death in April being to rest his head on her husband’s lap. Service dogs are trained to do that.

The CIA also honored Bush, the only spy chief to become president, as three agency directors past and present joined the public in the viewing.

In the midst of the period of mourning, first lady Melania Trump gave Laura Bush, one of her predecessors, a tour of holiday decorations at the White House, a “sweet visit during this somber week,” as Mrs. Bush’s Instagram account put it. And the Trumps visited members of the Bush family at the Blair House presidential guesthouse, where they are staying. Former President George W. Bush and his wife greeted the Trumps outside before everyone went in for the private, 20-minute visit.

Although President Donald Trump will attend Bush’s national funeral service Wednesday, he is not among the eulogists announced by the Bush family, a list that includes George W. Bush. The others are Alan Simpson, the former senator and acerbic wit from Wyoming; Brian Mulroney, the former Canadian prime minister who also gave a eulogy for Ronald Reagan; and presidential historian Jon Meacham.

People lined up before dawn to pay respects to the 41st president, a son and father of privilege now celebrated by everyday citizens for his common courtesies and depth of experience.

“He was so qualified, and I think he was just a decent man,” said Sharon Terry, touring Washington with friends from an Indianapolis garden club. Said her friend Sue Miller, also in line for the viewing: “I actually think I underestimated him when he was in office. My opinion of him went up seeing how he conducted himself as a statesman afterward.”

Fred Curry, one of the few African-Americans in line, is a registered Democrat from Hyattsville, Maryland, who voted for Bush in 1988, the election won by the one-term president. “Honestly, I just liked him,” he said. “He seemed like a sincere and decent man and you couldn’t argue with his qualifications.”

Inside the Capitol, Sully, the 2-year-old Labrador retriever assigned to Bush, sat by the casket in the company of people who came to commemorate Bush’s signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 law that, among its many provisions, required businesses that prohibit pets to give access to service dogs.

“After Mrs. Bush’s death, general companionship was a big part of Sully’s job,” John Miller, president and CEO of America’s VetDogs, said in a phone interview. “One of the things that I think was important to the president was the rest command, where Sully would rest his head on the president’s lap.”

The law was just one point of intersection for Bush and Dole, now 95, who was one of its leading advocates in the Senate.

They were fellow World War II veterans, Republican Party leaders, fierce rivals for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination won by Bush (“Stop lying about my record,” Dole snapped at Bush) and skilled negotiators. Dole, an Army veteran hit by German machine gunfire in Italy, has gone through life with a disabled right arm. Bush, a Navy pilot, survived a bail-out from his stricken aircraft over the Pacific and an earlier crash landing.

On Tuesday Dole was helped out of his wheelchair by an aide, slowly steadied himself and saluted Bush with his left hand, his chin quivering.

Dignitaries had come forward on Monday, too, to honor the Texan whose service to his country extended three quarters of a century, from World War II through his final years as an advocate for volunteerism and relief for people displaced by natural disaster. Bush, 94, died Friday.

Trump’s relationship with the Bush family has been tense. The current president has mocked the elder Bush for his “thousand points of light” call to volunteerism, challenged his son’s legacy as president and trounced “low-energy” Jeb Bush in the Republican presidential primaries en route to office. The late President Bush called Trump a “blowhard.”

Those insults have been set aside, but the list of funeral service speakers marked the first time since Lyndon Johnson’s death in 1973 that a sitting president was not tapped to eulogize a late president. (Bill Clinton did so for Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush eulogized Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.)

In an invocation opening Monday evening’s ceremony, the U.S. House chaplain, the Rev. Patrick J Conroy, praised Bush’s commitment to public service, from Navy pilot to congressman, U.N. ambassador, envoy to China and then CIA director before being elected vice president and then president.

“Here lies a great man,” said Rep. Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and “a gentle soul. … His legacy is grace perfected.”

After services in Washington, Bush’s remains will be returned to Houston to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before burial Thursday at his family plot on the presidential library grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station. His final resting place will be alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years who died in April, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia in 1953 at age 3.

Trump has ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-staff for 30 days.

Bush’s death reduces membership in the ex-presidents’ club to four: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

With Bush’s casket atop the Lincoln Catafalque, first used for Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 funeral, dignitaries came forward to honor the Texan whose efforts for his country extended three quarters of a century from World War II through his final years as an advocate for volunteerism and relief for people displaced by natural disaster.

President from 1989 to 1993, Bush died Friday at age 94.

In an invocation opening Monday evening’s ceremony, the U.S. House chaplain, the Rev. Patrick J Conroy, praised Bush’s commitment to public service, from Navy pilot to congressman, U.N. ambassador, envoy to China and then CIA director before being elected vice president and then president.

“Here lies a great man,” said Rep. Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and “a gentle soul. … His legacy is grace perfected.”

Vice President Mike Pence and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell also spoke.

But political combatants set aside their fights to honor a Republican who led in a less toxic time and at times found commonality with Democrats despite sharp policy disagreements. Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, past and incoming House speaker, exchanged a warm hug with George W. Bush and came away dabbing her face. Bush himself seemed to be holding back tears.

Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, placed wreaths in the short ceremony before the rotunda was to be opened to the public. It was to remain open overnight.

Sent off from Texas with a 21-gun salute, Bush’s casket was carried to Joint Base Andrews outside the capital city aboard an aircraft that often serves as Air Force One and designated “Special Air Mission 41” in honor of Bush’s place on the chronological list of presidents.

Cannon roared again outside the Capitol as the sun sank and his eldest son, former President George W. Bush, stood with his hand over his heart, watching the casket’s procession up the steps.

Bush was remembered just feet away from what he called “Democracy’s front porch,” the west-facing steps of the Capitol where he was sworn in as president.

He will lie in state in the Capitol for public visitation through Wednesday. An invitation-only funeral service is set for Wednesday at Washington National Cathedral. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are to attend.

Although Bush’s funeral services are suffused with the flourishes accorded presidents, by his choice they will not include a formal funeral procession through downtown Washington.

The younger President Bush, his wife, Laura, and others from the family traveled on the flight from Houston.

On Sunday, students, staff and visitors had flocked to Bush’s presidential library on the campus of Texas A&M University, with thousands of mourners paying their respects at a weekend candlelight vigil at a nearby pond and others contributing to growing flower memorials at Bush statues at both the library and a park in downtown Houston.

“I think he was one of the kindest, most generous men,” said Marge Frazier, who visited the downtown statue on Sunday while showing friends from California around.

After services in Washington, Bush will be returned to Houston to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before burial Thursday at his family plot on the library grounds. His final resting place will be alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years who died in April, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia in 1953 at age 3.

Trump has ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-staff for 30 days out of respect for Bush.

Trump, who has not always uttered kind words about the Bush family, offered nothing but praise in the hours after the former president’s death was announced.

“He was just a high-quality man who truly loved his family,” Trump said Saturday while in Argentina. “One thing that came through loud and clear, he was very proud of his family and very much loved his family. So he was a terrific guy and he’ll be missed.”

Bush’s passing puts him back in the Washington spotlight after more than two decades living the relatively low-key life of a former president. His death also reduces membership in the ex-presidents’ club to four: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

One of Bush’s major achievements was assembling the international military coalition that liberated the tiny, oil-rich nation of Kuwait from invading neighbor Iraq in 1991. The war lasted just 100 hours. He also presided over the end of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union.

A humble hero of World War II, Bush was just 20 when he survived being shot down during a bombing run over a Japanese island. He had joined the Navy when he turned 18.

Shortly before leaving the service, he married his 19-year-old sweetheart, Barbara Pierce, and forged the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. Bush enrolled at Yale University after military service, becoming a scholar-athlete and captaining the baseball team to two College World Series before graduating Phi Beta Kappa after just 2½ years.

After moving to Texas to work in the oil business, Bush turned his attention to politics in the 1960s. He was elected to the first of two terms in Congress in 1967. He would go on to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and China, head of the CIA and chairman of the Republican National Committee before being elected to two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president.

Soon after he reached the height of his political popularity following the liberation of Kuwait, with public approval ratings that are the envy of today’s politicians, the U.S. economy began to sour and voters began to believe that Bush, never a great communicator — something even he acknowledged — was out of touch with ordinary people.

He was denied a second term by Arkansas Gov. Clinton, who would later become a close friend. The pair worked together to raise tens of millions of dollars for victims of a 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and of Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.

“Who would have thought that I would be working with Bill Clinton of all people?” he joked in 2005.

In a recent essay, Clinton declared of Bush: “I just loved him.”

Associated Press writers Juan A.Lozano and Nomaan Marchant reported from Houston.

WASHINGTON — John McCain’s daughter opened his memorial service by posing her father’s legacy as a direct challenge to President Donald Trump, setting a tone that echoed the senator’s own fighting spirit as former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush eulogized him Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral.

Bush and Obama, both challenged by McCain in their bids for the White House, drew on the senator’s legacy at home and abroad to talk of the nation’s values in remarks that at times seemed a clear rebuke of Trump and his brand of politics.

Obama spoke of the long talks he and McCain would have privately in the Oval Office and the senator’s understanding that America’s security and influence came not from “our ability to bend others to our will” but universal values of rule of law and human rights.

“So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, tracking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” Obama said in another not-so-veiled nod to Trump. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

Bush said one of the great gifts in his life was becoming friends with his former White House rival. He said they would in later years recall their political battles like former football players remembering the big game.

But mostly Bush recalled a champion for the “forgotten people” at home and abroad whose legacy will serve as a reminder, even in times of doubt, of the power of America as more than a physical place but a “carrier of human aspirations.”

“John’s voice will always come as a whisper over our shoulder — we are better than this, America is better than this,” Bush said.

Bush, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat, spoke during the service at McCain’s request.

Trump was not on hand for the ceremony, after McCain’s family made clear he was not invited.

But Meghan McCain made sure Trump was part of the memorial in another way, leveling pointed criticism at the president in her eulogy.

“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, her voice first choking back tears then raising to anger.

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

In another clear swipe at Trump, she said some resented her father for being “a great fire who burned bright” and what he revealed about their own characters. Those critics, she said, still have an opportunity to emulate her father’s legacy.

Those gathered Saturday morning to eulogize the six-term senator included three former presidents, scores of members of Congress, current and former world leaders and family and friends. Among those in the front row were Barack and Michelle Obama, George and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Dick Cheney and Al Gore.

McCain’s motorcade arrived from the Capitol, where he laid in state overnight, and the procession made a stop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where McCain’s wife, Cindy, placed a wreath. His flag-draped casket was escorted by military body bearers up the cathedral steps under gray skies.

It was the last public event in Washington, where McCain lived and worked over four decades, and part of McCain’s five-day, cross-country funeral procession. He died Aug. 25 at age 81.

“His death seems to have reminded the American people that these values are what makes us a great nation, not the tribal partisanship and personal attack politics that have recently characterized our life, ” said former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a longtime friend and fellow global traveler who McCain once considered as his vice presidential running mate.

“This week’s celebration of the life and values and patriotism of this hero, I think have taken our country above all that,” he said. “In a way, it’s the last great gift that John McCain gave America.”

Trump, meanwhile, left the White House in the presidential motorcade shortly after 10:30 a.m., as the service was underway, headed to his Virginia golf course.

Two of his top aides, White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, flanked Cindy McCain as she placed the wreath at the memorial and joine the service. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner are attended.

McCain was a decorated veteran who was held for more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He refused early release. Trump obtained deferments for his college education and a foot ailment.

McCain had long urged the Senate and the polarized nation to recognize the humanity even in bitter political opponents. McCain’s request for speeches by the former presidents, to some, represents that ideal.

“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe,” McCain wrote in his farewell letter to the nation, read posthumously by a longtime aide. “We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”

By all accounts, McCain ended up liking both Bush and Obama but was not especially close to either man. Bush delivered McCain a decisive defeat in the race for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. Obama defeated McCain eight years later in the general election.

McCain’s service and dedication to working across the aisle — even as he sometimes infuriated his opponents — was a major theme of Friday’s ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.

Of those who spoke at Friday’s ceremony, fellow Republican Mitch McConnell had perhaps the fullest sense of the McCain experience. The two had served in the Senate together since McCain’s 1986 election.

McCain is to be buried Sunday at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, next to his best friend from the Class of 1958, Adm. Chuck Larson.

“Back,” McCain wrote on the last page of his recent memoir, “where it began.”

A private burial service next Sunday will conclude nearly a week of events honoring the Navy aviator, prisoner of war, congressman, longtime senator and presidential contender. The Arizona Republican died of brain cancer Saturday at 81 at his ranch near Sedona.

Plans taking shape called for McCain to lie in state Wednesday in the Arizona State Capitol on what would have been his 82nd birthday. A funeral will be conducted Thursday at North Phoenix Baptist Church with former Vice President Joe Biden speaking.

In Washington, McCain will lie in state Friday in the Capitol Rotunda with a formal ceremony and time for the public to pay respects. On Saturday, a procession will pass the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and arrive for a funeral at Washington National Cathedral. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are expected to speak at the service.

A private funeral is planned for Sunday afternoon at the Naval Academy Chapel followed by a private burial at the academy cemetery. As he wished, McCain will be buried next to a Naval Academy classmate and lifelong friend, Chuck Larson.

President Donald Trump was not expected to attend any of the services. McCain had long feuded with Trump, and two White House officials said McCain’s family had asked, before the senator’s death, that Trump not attend services. Vice President Mike Pence is likely to attend, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

Trump noted the senator’s death in a tweet Saturday: “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!” First lady Melania Trump tweeted thanks to McCain for his service to the country.

Bush and Obama had been McCain’s political opponents, too, blocking his White House ambitions in 2000 and 2008, respectively. “These were bitter contests, both of them,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” and “to ask them to speak at your funeral, and for them to be honored at the opportunity, that tells you all you need to know.”

One of McCain’s long-serving Senate colleagues, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday, “The nation mourns the loss of a great American patriot, a statesman who put his country first and enriched this institution through many years of service.”

With McCain set to be honored in Arizona’s Capitol, GOP Gov. Doug Ducey said in a tweet, “This is a rare and distinct occurrence for a truly special man.”

Ducey did not plan to announce his selection of a Senate successor to McCain until after McCain’s burial. Under state law, the governor’s appointee to serve until the next general election, in 2020, must come from the same political party.

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.”

McCain was the son and grandson of admirals and followed them to the U.S. Naval Academy. A pilot, he was shot down over Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for more than five years. He went on to win a seat in the House and in 1986, the Senate, where he served for the rest of his life.

“He had a joy about politics and a love for his country that was unmatched,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told CNN’s “State of the Union.” ”And while he never made it to the presidency, in the Senate, he was the leader that would see a hot spot in the world and just say, we need to go there and stand up for that democracy.”

Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — John McCain lived most of his life in the public eye, surviving war, torture, scandal, political stardom and failure, the enmity of some colleagues and the election of President Donald Trump.

Even brain cancer didn’t seem to scare McCain so much as it sobered and saddened him.

“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it,” McCain wrote in his memoir, referencing a line from his favorite book, the Ernest Hemingway war novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” ”I hate to leave.”

A look at public moments that made McCain:

PRISONER OF WAR, CELEBRITY

McCain became a public figure at age 31 when his bed-bound image was broadcast from North Vietnam in 1967. The North Vietnamese had figured out that he was the son and grandson of famous American military men — a “crown prince,” they called him. He was offered an early release, but refused. McCain’s captors beat him until he confessed, an episode that first led to shame — and then discovery. McCain has written that that’s when he learned to trust not just his legacy but his own judgment — and his resilience.

Less than a decade after his March 1973 release, McCain was elected to the House as a Republican from Arizona. In 1986, voters there sent him to the Senate.

THE KEATING FIVE

He called it “my asterisk” and the worst mistake of his life.

At issue was a pair of 1987 meetings between McCain, four other senators and regulators to get the government to back off a key campaign donor. Charles Keating Jr. wanted McCain and Democratic Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio and Don Riegle of Michigan to get government auditors to stop pressing Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. All five denied improper conduct. McCain was cleared of all charges but found to have exercised “poor judgment.”

“His honor was being questioned and that’s nothing that he takes lightly,” said Mark Salter, McCain’s biographer and co-author of his new memoir, “The Restless Wave.”

THE SENATE

McCain became his party’s leading voice on matters of war, national security and veterans – and eventually became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He worked with a Democrat to rewrite the nation’s campaign finance laws. He voted for the Iraq War and supported the 2007 surge of forces there even as his own sons served or prepared to serve. But there was one thing that wasn’t as widely known about him: McCain, owner of a ranch in Arizona that is in the flight path of 500 species of migratory birds, became concerned about the environment.

“People associate John with defense and national security, as well they should. But he also had a great concern for and love of the environment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who traveled to the ends of the earth with McCain — to the Arctic Circle in 2004 and Antarctica two years later — on fact-finding missions related to climate change. Back on McCain’s Arizona ranch, the senator gave Collins an extensive nature tour of the property. “I particularly remember his love for the birds,” Collins said. “He loved the birds.”

TOWN HALLS, STRAIGHT TALK

McCain in the 2000 election did something new: He toured New Hampshire on a bus laden with doughnuts and reporters that stopped at “town hall” meetings where voters were invited to exchange views with the candidate. The bus was called the “Straight Talk Express,” and that’s what he promised to deliver at the town halls. The whole thing was messy, unscripted and often hilarious. And ultimately the events re-introduced McCain to voters as a candid and authentic, just a year after President Bill Clinton was acquitted of lying to Congress and obstruction.

In New Hampshire that year, McCain defeated George W. Bush in an 18-point blowout, only to be pushed out of the race in South Carolina. But the town halls remained a fond McCain memory.

“The town halls were festivals of politics,” Salter said. “They were so authentic and open and honest.”

‘NO MA’AM’

McCain, in 2008 making his second run for president, quickly intervened when a woman in Lakeville, Minnesota, stood at a town hall event and began to make disparaging remarks about Democratic presidential nominee and then-Sen. Barack Obama. “He’s an Arab,” she said, implying he was not an American.

“No ma’am,” McCain said, taking the microphone from her. “He’s a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about. He’s not.”

It was a defining moment for McCain as a leader, a reflection of his thinking that partisans should disagree without demonizing each other. But it reflected McCain’s reckoning with the fear pervading his party of Obama, who would go on to become the nation’s first black president.

CANCER

McCain last year was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same aggressive cancer that had felled his friend, Sen. Edward Kennedy, in 2009.

Friends and family say he understood the gravity of the diagnosis — but quickly turned to the speech he wanted to give on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to shed the partisanship that had produced gridlock. Face scarred and bruised from surgery, he pounded the lectern. Some of the sternest members of the Senate hugged him, tears in their eyes.

“Of all of the things that have happened in this man’s life, of all of the times that his life could have ended in the ways it could have ended, this (cancer) is by far one of the least threats to him and that’s kind of how he views it,” his son, Jack McCain, told the Arizona Republic in January.

HEALTH CARE VOTE

Republicans, driven by Trump, were one vote away from advancing a repeal of Obama’s health care law. Then McCain, scarred from brain surgery, swooped into the Senate chamber and, facing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, dramatically held up his hand.

The thumb flicked down. Gasps could be heard throughout the staid chamber. McConnell stood motionless, arms crossed.

Trump’s campaign promise — and the premiere item on his agenda — was dead.

TRUMP

McCain tangled with Trump, who never served in the military, for years.

As a candidate, Trump in 2016 claimed the decorated McCain is only considered a war hero because he had been captured. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said at an event in Iowa. “I like people who weren’t captured.” Shortly before Election Day in 2016, McCain said he’s rather cast his vote for another Republican, someone who’s “qualified to be president.” Trump fumed, without using McCain’s name, that the senator is the only reason the Affordable Care Act stands.

McCain responded: “I have faced tougher adversaries.”

But nine years after being shot down in Afghanistan, then winning a lawsuit against the federal government, writing a book and now running for a Texas congressional seat, Hegar isn’t hiding much anymore.

“I carry my service with me wherever I go,” Hegar said in a telephone interview near her home in Round Rock, outside Austin. “We don’t see my family and my childhood and my service as different chapters. It’s all a package deal.”

Hegar is part of a crop of female veterans running for Congress in this year’s midterm elections. Almost all Democrats and many of them mothers, they are shaped by the Sept. 11 attacks and overseas wars, including the longest war in American history. Many are retiring from the military and looking for another way to serve the country.

They’re part of a record number of women running for seats in Congress, but in certain ways, they are a class apart.

The female veterans claim expertise in national security and veterans issues, with a track record of thriving in institutions dominated by men. Regardless of party, they cast themselves as the antidote to bitterly partisan politics — describing themselves as “mission-driven” and trained by the military to work toward a common goal.

“I flew 89 combat missions as a U.S. Marine. My 90th mission is running for Congress to take on politicians who put party over country,” said Kentucky Democratic candidate Amy McGrath, the first female Marine to fly an F/A-18 in combat.

The increase in candidates with military experience is no accident, and the hopefuls are expected to be propelled by Democratic luminaries. Former Vice President Joe Biden, for example, is expected to campaign for McGrath, among others, according to officials close to them who spoke on condition of anonymity because the schedule is not set.

Two Democrats — Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, a retired Marine Corps captain and Bronze Star recipient, and Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs and partial use of an arm when her helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq — have been instrumental in recruiting veterans to run for office.

Moulton said female veterans in his party carry a particular authority when talking to voters concerned about President Donald Trump’s leadership.

“It’s the year of the woman, but it’s also the year of yearning for bringing integrity and honor back to politics,” Moulton said. “We need Democrats with the credibility to tell people what’s really going on.”

The women are hardly the first to use their military service to their political advantage — men have been doing it for decades.

One of the traditional knocks against female candidates is “they aren’t tough enough, they aren’t strong enough, and they might not have the leadership skills,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“They kind of automatically get that kind of respect as leaders; it’s well-earned,” Walsh said. “It’s such a logical next step for people who are committed to this country and are committed to service.”

But their campaigns highlight a set of political concerns specific to female veterans.

The candidates acknowledge that their extraordinary stories of trailblazing military careers could make it difficult for some voters to relate to them. Will they come off as too tough or hawkish? Is it possible for any candidate, male or female, to overemphasize his or her military background in the post-9/11 era?

McGrath, who retired as a lieutenant colonel, opened her campaign with an online video in which she wears a bomber jacket, a fighter jet in the background.

McGrath sees herself as a bridge to male voters who “sort of see women as being weaker,” she said in a telephone interview. “But yeah, I have to make an effort to reach out to women and make sure that they’re not scared, or think that I’m too militant.”

Out came a 30-second spot that mentioned the 89 combat missions — but focused on McGrath taking her three children to the pediatrician.

“I’m Amy McGrath and I approved this ad,” she says, as her young son takes off down a hallway with his pants down. “Because I’d like to see the other guys running deal with this.”

She upset popular Lexington Mayor Jim Gray in the Democratic primary and will take on Republican Rep. Andy Barr in November, a closely watched race considered competitive in a district Barr won by 22 points in 2016. Poised for the different calculus of the general election, Barr last week released an ad quoting McGrath saying of herself, “Hell yeah, I’m a feminist” and calling herself “a progressive.”

“Seriously? Is that all you got?” McGrath retorted in a video response, sharing the screen once again with a fighter jet. But this time, she traded her bomber jacket for a denim one.

Much of Hegar’s story was already public by the time she decided to challenge Republican Rep. John Carter in the Austin-area district, so she went for the full reveal — tattoos and all.

Her video, “Doors,” features the door of the helicopter in which she was shot down on her third tour of Afghanistan as a combat search and rescue pilot. Her medals, including a Purple Heart, play a role, as does Hegar’s 2012 lawsuit against the federal government that forced it to repeal the ban on women in combat.

The spot also features an intimate detail: One of Hegar’s first memories was of her father throwing her mother through a glass door.

“That’s been one of the most difficult transitions for me, is talking about myself more,” Hegar said. “I hope that they take away that we have to start putting our faith in people who have a history of putting other people first, fighting against intimidation and bullying, and trying to do the right thing.”

Air Force veteran Gina Ortiz Jones, the Democratic nominee for a House seat in West Texas, hopes her active military duty and intelligence work will “neutralize this perceived strength” of Republicans as strong on security issues.

That could be important in the race for the San Antonio-area seat, currently held by Republican Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA operative. Ortiz Jones supports single-payer health insurance, a position that could be considered too liberal for the district.

“‘Liberal’ isn’t a word that is normally used to describe my work in national security,” she said.

If these women win, they will join an exclusive club in Congress.

Just 19 percent of lawmakers are veterans — the same percentage that are women. Only four members are both: Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; and Reps. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.

“It kind of reminds me of a fighter squadron, with so few women,” said McSally, a retired Air Force veteran who was the first woman to fly in combat and is now running for U.S. Senate.

All the candidates have stories about being among the only women working among men and have used their platform to speak out about abuses in the military.

McSally told The Wall Street Journal in April that she was pressured into having sex in high school with a coach and that she became an Air Force pilot in part to regain a sense of power. But even there, she told the paper, she had “similar, awful experiences in the military on the spectrum of abuse of power and sexual assault.” She did not elaborate.

Pennsylvania’s Chrissy Houlahan, a retired Air Force officer and now a congressional candidate, said she cringed more than once when a male colonel “used blonde jokes” to introduce her for presentations to superior officers.

“I definitely felt some overt sexism,” she said.

New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill is a former helicopter pilot and prosecutor whose time at the Naval Academy dovetailed with the Tailhook sexual assault scandal in the Navy and Marine Corps. In the 1990s, she said, speaking out when she felt sexually harassed “would really have impacted the way I was treated in the squadron.”

But these days, with a generation of women retiring from the military and a record number running for Congress, “it’s become a lot easier to talk about these things,” she said.