Meghan McCain tore into an absent President Trump at a memorial service for her father, Arizona Sen. John McCain, in Washington on Saturday.

“We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” McCain, a co-host of “The View,” said at the National Cathedral. “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.”

“He was a great fire who burned bright,” she said in a speech punctuated by sobbing. “A few have resented that fire… but my father never cared what they thought.

“The America of John McCain does not need to be made great again, because America was always great.”

Three former presidents – but not Trump, who wasn’t invited – and 2,500 invited colleagues and friends gathered to say their final farewells to McCain, the Vietnam War hero, presidential candidate and maverick Republican.

McCain, who was 81, succumbed to an aggressive brain tumor on Aug. 25.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, each of whom defeated McCain in his bids for the White House, spoke in tribute. Former President Bill Clinton was in attendance, but not scheduled to speak.

Obama, too, directed some veiled criticism at his White House successor.

“So much of our politics, our policy and our public discourse can be small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insults and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” Obama said. “It pretends to be brave and tough, but in fact is born of fear.

“John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.”

As the service proceeded, Trump motorcaded to his Virginia golf course and tweeted about Canadian trade negotiations and the federal investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election.

The memorial service, which McCain planned in the final months of his life, was pointedly bipartisan — a theme that longtime friend, former Sen. Joe Lieberman, emphasized in his own tribute speech. Lieberman recalled how McCain longed to name him as his 2008 running mate – a role eventually filled by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican.

When Lieberman protested that a cross-party ticket would meet stiff opposition, he recalled, McCain got impatient.

“He said, ‘That’s the point, Joe – you’re a Democrat, I’m a Republican. We can give our country the bipartisan leadership it needs for a change,’” Lieberman said.

During Bush’s speech, the 43rd president recalled his battle with McCain for the Republican nomination in 2000.

“Back in the day he could frustrate me, and I know he’d say the same thing about me,” Bush said. “But he also made me better.”

A host of Washington luminaries including Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani were spotted in the crowd. Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump, along with her husband Jared Kushner, attended. Honorary pallbearers include Vice President Joe Biden, actor Warren Beatty, and Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Saturday’s ceremony marks the culmination of a week of remembrances for McCain. Earlier this week, he laid in state in Phoenix’s state capital.

McCain, the son and grandson of Navy admirals, graduated from the US Naval Academy. As an aviator in the Vietnam War, his plane was shot from the sky by the North Vietnamese in 1967.

He was held for five and a half years, including two years in solitary confinement.

Despite horrific beatings and endless interrogations, McCain refused his captors’ offers to release him. The North Vietnamese, having realized he was the son of a Navy admiral, were eager for the propaganda boost that freeing McCain would give them.

“They could have said to the [other prisoners], ‘look, you poor devils, the son of the man who is running the war has gone home and left you here. No one cares for you ordinary fellows,’” McCain recalled after his release.

He came home to a hero’s welcome in 1973, permanently disabled by the injuries he suffered in his crash-landing and captivity.

John McCain (right) with his brother, Joe McCain, and grandfather, Adm. John Sidney McCain Sr. McCain is rescued from a lake in Vietnam after his Navy fighter was shot down over the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. McCain is tended to by a Vietnamese doctor as a prisoner of war in 1967. McCain spent 5 ½ years as a POW after his fighter was shot down during an October 1967 bombing mission. McCain in 1967 A still shot from a film of McCain while he was detained at a Vietnamese hospital as a POW. McCain was put through torture and his war wounds would leave him with lifelong disabilities. McCain with members of his squadron in 1965 McCain is greeted by President Richard Nixon after returning home from Vietnam. McCain waves to the crowd as he arrives at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida. McCain endured over five years of confinement as a POW and refused his early release until all those being held at Hoa Lo were released. McCain after his release from confinement as a POW in Vietnam in 1973. McCain is all smiles at the celebration for Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People issue at Lincoln Center in 2006. McCain chats with the Dalai Lama in Aspen, Colorado. McCain shakes hands with President George W. Bush. Bush endorsed McCain's presidential campaign. McCain places a note in the Western Wall during a visit to Jerusalem in March 2008. McCain waves to supporters as he boards his campaign charter en route to the Republican National Convention. McCain is joined on stage by wife Cindy after he officially accepts the Republican Party's nomination. McCain speaks to supporters at a Wisconsin rally. In a move that surprised many, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. McCain and Sen. Barack Obama visit the site of the Twin Towers on the seventh anniversary of 9/11 in 2008. McCain speaks with his wife, Cindy, before addressing the crowd at a rally in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. McCain and Obama greet each other at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. Appearing at the dinner is a tradition for presidential candidates during an election year. McCain chats with the host during his appearance on "The Tonight Show with David Letterman." McCain is energized at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. McCain waves to supporters as he is applauded by "Joe The Plumber" during the final week of campaigning before the Nov. 4 election in 2008. Ad Up Next Close Pope calls plastics littering oceans an 'emergency' VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis wants concrete action to combat... 23 View Slideshow Back Continue Share this: Facebook

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In 1986, McCain was elected to the US Senate from his adopted state of Arizona. He easily won re-election five times, including in 2016.

Just months into his first term, McCain was entangled in the Keating Five scandal. He and four other senators were investigated for influence-peddling on behalf of a campaign donor, bank owner Charles Keating Jr.

His career survived the probe, and in its wake he spearheaded a major campaign finance reform measure, the McCain-Feingold Act, and battled earmarks and other practices he deemed corrupt.

The famously irascible senator held his most notorious grudge against Trump, who disparaged McCain on the campaign trail for having been captured in Vietnam.

McCain later cast the deciding vote that doomed the GOP’s effort to repeal Obamacare – a signature Trump campaign promise – and blasted Trump’s chummy July summit with Vladimir Putin as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

McCain is survived by his wife, Cindy, and seven children from his two marriages. A private burial was scheduled for Sunday at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.