McCain flag dust-up

GOP senators ding White House over McCain flag dust-up

'I think all of us are focused on the good of John McCain, and not the pettiness of others. I’ll just leave it at that,' says Sen. Bob Corker.

By ELANA SCHOR

President Donald Trump's delay in honoring late-Sen. John McCain left some Republican senators questioning on Monday why the president failed to lower the White House flag to half-staff sooner.

Trump’s proclamation Monday to order the White House flag to half-staff in McCain’s honor — after a raising of the flag on Monday morning drew criticism from veterans’ groups — left even some of the president’s congressional GOP allies scratching their heads. As Americans on both sides of the aisle came together to mourn McCain, the move seemed to strike the late Arizona senator’s bereaved Republican colleagues as a needless unforced error.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said that the Monday flap over White House flags rising while Capitol flags remained at half-staff for McCain “should not have happened.”

“That should have been automatic,” Hatch told reporters. “You do things that are sensible. And sensitive.”

Although official code governing the display of the flag calls for a lowering to half-staff for one full day after a member of Congress dies, which the White House had done following McCain’s death on Saturday, usual protocol for particularly high-ranking public officials has involved keeping the flag lowered until the day of internment.

Trump signed a proclamation making that happen on Monday afternoon, only after veterans’ groups had begun speaking out — and began his statement with an acknowledgment of his and McCain’s “differences on policy and politics.” After tangling with Trump during the 2016 campaign, McCain was unafraid to openly challenge Trump’s agenda and view of the world, including an implicit jab at the president in a farewell statement released publicly on Monday.

Trump declined to answer repeated questions from White House reporters about McCain earlier on Monday, but later appeared to warm to honoring the late senator yet again during a dinner with evangelical leaders. “We very much appreciate everything that Sen. McCain has done for our country," Trump said, according to a pool report.

That tension between Trump and McCain made an already sorrowful moment even tenser for Republican senators returning to the Capitol on Monday.

“I could not understand why the administration had the flag lowered for such a brief period of time,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said.

Asked if Trump was letting his strained relationship with the late six-term Arizonan get in the way of honoring McCain, Collins added: “It certainly looks that way, but I can’t speak for his motive. I’m just glad that the decision’s been reversed.”

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), chief of the GOP conference’s campaign arm, declined to address the White House’s decision-making on the flag and tried to pull the conversation back to McCain.

“I’m not going to get into that,” Gardner said. “What I am going to say is, this week is about John McCain, his legacy, his lifetime of service to this country.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) readily volunteered that she was glad to see the White House return the flags to half-staff.

“I mean, come on, he’s a national hero, much-beloved, and I’m pleased that we’re doing the right thing,” Capito said, circling back to clarify that “I shouldn’t say ‘we’ — the right thing is being done.”

Trump’s proclamation on raising the White House flag came soon after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who each delivered heartfelt speeches in McCain’s honor Monday, asked the Pentagon for assistance in flying flags at half-staff on all government buildings. The Senate also unanimously passed a resolution in McCain’s honor late Monday.

Both McConnell and Schumer are scheduled to deliver remarks Friday on a ceremony in honor of McCain, who will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Vice President Mike Pence is slated to speak on behalf of the administration, while Trump stays away from both that event and McCain’s Saturday memorial service in Washington.

Schumer also has proposed renaming the Russell Senate Office Building, where McCain’s office was located, in honor of the late GOP presidential nominee and decorated veteran. McConnell has yet to fully endorse that idea, saying Monday that he would consult with fellow senators on it. But Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) signed on as a cosponsor of Schumer’s plan and other Republicans signaled potential support.

“I think I’d be in favor of naming almost any building for McCain,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters, “but I’m not sure that I want to make a decision on a specific building at this point.”

Although the late former Sen. Richard Russell (D-Ga.) “is somebody that was obviously a huge figure,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said, “it is an era that’s gone by.” Speculating about potential opposition to the renaming, Corker quipped that “I don’t know who would want to vote against naming a building after somebody who just passed.”

The Foreign Relations chairman also offered a subtle jab at Trump when asked about the White House’s stumble on honoring McCain with the flag at half-staff.

“I think all of us are focused on the good of John McCain, and not the pettiness of others,” Corker said. “I’ll just leave it at that.”