EVANSVILLE, Ind. — As Senator John McCain’s coffin was being loaded onto a military plane bound for Washington on Thursday afternoon, cameras from major American TV networks beamed the coverage around the world, allowing a rapt public to witness the next leg of his four-day funeral.

Back at the White House, President Trump aggressively tried to wrestle back the attention.

“Throwback Thursday!” the president exclaimed on Twitter, posting a video of celebratory Fox News clips of his unlikely route to the presidency just as Mr. McCain’s coffin was heading for Washington, where it will lie in state in the United States Capitol on Friday.

As the day unfolded, Mr. Trump’s behavior continued to offer a split-screen effect that has persisted since Mr. McCain died at 81 from brain cancer on Saturday. This week, Mr. Trump has once again made clear that his usual media blitzing does not slow for anyone, and he has barreled forward to showcase the new and politically tribal reality that he has promised his supporters.

Conspicuously absent from the president was any acknowledgment that a nation was remembering the contributions of Mr. McCain, a Republican war hero and two-time presidential candidate. Clues to how Mr. Trump might feel about having the attention diverted from him lay not in what he said — and on Thursday, he certainly had a lot to say — but in what he did not.