White House flags return to half-staff to honor Sen. John McCain after outcry

Show Caption Hide Caption Hours later, White House flags are back to half-staff honoring McCain President Donald Trump ordered White House flags to be lowered back to half-staff for the late Senator John McCain after facing a growing public outcry.

WASHINGTON – Facing a growing public outcry, President Donald Trump ordered U.S. flags brought back down to half-staff Monday to honor Arizona Sen. John McCain – hours after they had been raised.

As the nation mourned the loss of the former Vietnam POW, veteran senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee, the White House came under siege for raising the flags two days after McCain’s death. Trump and McCain had a rocky relationship for years.

The White House received criticism from veterans groups, including the American Legion, distracting from the administration's announcement of a long-awaited trade deal between the United States and Mexico. Trump remained mum as reporters shouted McCain questions after a meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Hours after images of the fully raised flags catapulted across cable news and social media, Trump offered a formal statement about his former rival and signed a proclamation to lower the flags. By late afternoon, the flags over the White House had come back down, matching the lowered position at the U.S. Capitol and other government buildings.

"Our hearts and prayers are going out the family of Senator John McCain," Trump said Monday evening during a dinner with evangelical leaders. "We very much appreciate everything that Senator McCain has done for our country."

Though federal law requires flags to be flown at half-staff for two days after the death of members of Congress, presidents have signed proclamations extending the honor for prominent people until burial. Trump had signed such orders, including one for former first lady Barbara Bush in April.

American Legion National Commander Denise Rohan wrote a letter to Trump "strongly" urging him to sign a proclamation for McCain, who died Saturday from brain cancer.

"The American Legion urges the White House to follow long-established protocol following the death of prominent government officials," Rohan wrote in a letter to Trump. "Senator John McCain was an American hero.”

In addition to ordering the flags lowered until McCain's burial, Trump asked Vice President Mike Pence to deliver remarks at a ceremony for McCain at the U.S. Capitol on Friday. He named a delegation that included his chief of staff, John Kelly, to attend McCain's funeral. He authorized military transportation of McCain's remains from Arizona to Washington.

Flags are lowered by presidential proclamation, so the president decides who receives the honor. The recent tradition for senators who die in office has been to have flags lowered in their honor from their death until their burial.

During President Barack Obama's tenure, four sitting senators died: Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in 2009; Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., in 2010; Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, in 2012; and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., in 2013.

Obama signed proclamations for Kennedy, Byrd and Inouye, and those proclamations lowered flags to half-staff until the day they were buried. The Obama White House archives don't include a proclamation for Lautenberg, though according to news reports at the time, the flag did fly at half-staff at the White House for an unspecified amount of time.

When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016 – the first time a justice died in office in more than 50 years – Obama signed a proclamation on the day of his death, ordering flags lowered until his burial.

McCain's death is the first time a sitting senator has died since Trump's administration began.

Trump has previously sparked debate over his decisions on when and where to lower the flag, especially after mass shootings. He issued proclamations after massacres in Las Vegas and Parkland, Florida. After the newsroom shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, he didn't initially bring the flags to half-staff.

He ultimately lowered them five days after the shooting.

Amid an outpouring of praise for McCain on Saturday night, Trump made only a brief statement about the senator's death, offering condolences to his family on Twitter but no words of praise for McCain himself. The two had a long history of mutual disdain.

The president's full statement Monday:

As a mark of respect for the memory and longstanding service of Senator John Sidney McCain III, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, on the day of interment. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half‑staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-seventh day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-third. DONALD J. TRUMP

Contributing: Gregory Korte and Erin Kelly

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