President Donald Trump may not be among those paying their respects at Sen. John McCain‘s funeral, but his wife still could be.
Responding to speculation about whether Melania Trump will attend the funeral without her husband, a White House spokesperson for the first lady tells People, “We have made no announcements, so any reports you are seeing did not come from our office.”
In its morning news reports about Sen. McCain, CNN broadcasted a headline graphic saying that Mrs. Trump will not attend the funeral services. Questions about whether the first lady would be among the mourners honoring Sen. McCain started after The New York Times reported that initial plans indicated that “Vice President Mike Pence was to attend, but not President Trump,” who has publicly disparaged Sen. McCain on numerous occasions.
“Our thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathy to the McCain Family,” Mrs. Trump, 48, tweeted after Sen. McCain died of brain cancer at the age of 81 on Saturday. “Thank you Senator McCain for your service to the nation.”
In April, Mrs. Trump traveled to Houston for the funeral of former first lady Barbara Bush, which Mr. Trump did not attend.
Sen. McCain “will be laid to rest at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland,” according to his official website, which notes the funeral schedule will be announced at a later time.
Before his death, Sen. McCain asked that former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush speak at his funeral, and Obama and Bush have already been requested to offer eulogies. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden will speak at an Arizona service in Sen. McCain’s honor.
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Sen. McCain will lie in state in the Arizona Capitol and Capitol Rotunda — only the 13th time a senator has done so, the Times reported.
The burial location is expected to be near his classmate and lifelong friend, Chuck Larson, the Arizona Republic reported.
In an emotional tweet, Sen. McCain’s wife Cindy McCain, 64, wrote on Saturday, “My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years. He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved, in the place he loved best.”
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On Friday, his family announced that McCain, “with his usual strength of will,” decided to stop treatment for the stage-four brain cancer he had been battling since its diagnosis last summer.
In July 2017, McCain revealed that he had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer, just days after he underwent surgery to remove a blood clot above his eye.