Donald Trump’s name was never mentioned. It didn’t have to be. The funeral service for John Sidney McCain III, at the Washington National Cathedral, on this swampy Saturday morning, was all about a rebuke to the pointedly uninvited current President of the United States, which was exactly how McCain had planned it. 
 
 Of course, there were fulsome tributes to Senator McCain’s bravery and courage and public service, stark reminders of the torture he endured as a prisoner of war, and of the policies he fought for (and against) in his many decades as a Republican politician from Arizona. But McCain knew that would not be the headline from the grand service, whose many details he personally oversaw. This was to be no mere laying to rest of a Washington wise man, nor just another funeral of an elder statesman whose passing would be marked by flowery words about the end of an era. It was a meeting of the Resistance, under vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows. 
 
 This was made clear a few minutes into the two-and-a-half-hour service, when McCain’s daughter Meghan, weeping at times, called it a funeral for nothing less than “the passing of American greatness” that her father represented, and not the “cheap rhetoric” that now passes for it. Later, her voice breaking, she said, “The America of John McCain does not need to be made great again, because it is already great.” Her eulogy was then interrupted by applause, the first time I have heard such a thing at a funeral in that great, cavernous, and sombre Episcopalian hall. She hadn’t uttered the name of the “President Non Grata,” as the Washington Post recently referred to Trump, nor did she need to. Midway through her remarkable speech, a pool report from the White House was released. Trump, wearing a white “Make America Great Again” hat, and having tweeted his morning complement of bile, directed at Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller, and his own Justice Department, had departed to play golf. 
 
 Before he died, McCain had personally enlisted Trump’s two Presidential predecessors to speak at the service, and when they came to the lectern both George W. Bush and Barack Obama fulfilled the role they had been assigned, offering tributes to the man they had each beaten in an election, as well as odes to the American political system they all loved. In any other context, maybe it would not seem to be a stinging criticism to hear Obama praise the “rule of law.” But Trump is the inescapable context of these times in Washington. “Perhaps above all,” Bush said, “John detested the abuse of power.” When Bush talked about McCain’s dedication to America’s leadership in the world and his hatred of tyrants, how many of those listening thought of the current President’s praise for many of those same dictators whom McCain had been so proud to oppose? Of course they thought of it. That was the point. 
 
 In the line of his address that is sure to be its most quoted, Obama seemed to describe both Trump and the divisive way in which he has chosen to lead the country. “So much of our politics can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult, in phony controversies and manufactured outrage,” Obama said. “It’s a politics that pretends to be brave, 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.” Heads nodded. Democratic heads and Republican ones alike. For a moment, at least, they still lived in the America where Obama and Bush and Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney could all sit in the same pew, in the same church, and sing the same words to the patriotic hymns that made them all teary-eyed at the same time. When the two Presidents were done speaking, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” blared out. This time, once again, the battle is within America. The country’s leadership, the flawed, all too human men and women who have run the place, successfully or not, for the past few decades, were all in the same room, at least for a few hours on a Saturday morning. The President of the United States, however, was not. ||||| CLOSE Meghan McCain's full eulogy of her father, Senator John S. McCain USA TODAY 
 
 Meghan McCain eulogizes her father John McCain at the National Cathedral, Saturday, during his memorial service. Sen. McCain died on Aug. 25, 2018 of brain cancer. (Photo: JACK GRUBER/USA TODAY) 
 
 Perhaps the most biting part of Meghan McCain's eulogy for her father Sen. John McCain during Saturday's memorial was when she went straight for President Trump's slogan. 
 
 "The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great," she said as part of a speech that routinely took jabs at Trump. 
 
 People in the room clapped and social media erupted. You can read her entire speech. 
 
 Meghan gave one of several eulogies in McCain's honor Saturday when a who's who of Washington and the world gathered at the National Cathedral for his memorial service. 
 
 President Trump was not invited and decided instead to spend time at the Trump National Golf Club in Loudoun County, Virginia, amid a morning of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the FBI and threatening Canada. 
 
 Hours later, though, Trump seemingly responded on Twitter with a signature-style message to "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Reviews of his response were mixed. 
 
 MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2018 
 
 @MeghanMcCain told you this morning that there'a no need for that. AMERICA HAS ALWAYS BEEN GREAT! It will be better still, when we get you out of the people's House. — Lynn Beckman (@lynn1219) September 2, 2018 
 
 GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER! — Jacob Rossi (@JacobARossi) September 1, 2018 
 
 DonaldTrump has yet to show any semblance of leadership. I'm not sure what we'd call his management style, but it's most certainly not about lifting people up and so is not leadership. — Jason O. Nungesser (@JasonON) September 2, 2018 
 
 THE RED WAVE IS COMING! — The Trump Train 🚂🇺🇸 (@The_Trump_Train) September 1, 2018 
 
 Contributing: Ryan Miller 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2Cl2rtF ||||| Washington (CNN) Meghan McCain on Saturday presented the legacy of her father, John McCain, as a sharp contrast to the conduct of President Donald Trump, with whom the late senator bitterly feuded. 
 
 Although McCain didn't mention the President by name -- and he was not present at the service, in accordance with the late senator's wishes -- she made several unmistakable and pointed references throughout her emotional remarks. 
 
 "We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness, 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 live lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served," McCain told the crowd of mourners at Washington National Cathedral, which included family, friends, former presidents, military officials and foreign leaders. 
 
 "The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again, because America was always great," she said, a not-so-veiled reference to Trump's 2016 campaign slogan. The line was received with loud and sustained applause in the cathedral. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Watch Meghan McCain deliver eulogy for her dad Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Watch Meghan McCain deliver eulogy for her dad 17:09 
 
 She later added, "We live in an era where we knock down old American heroes for all their imperfections when no leader wants to admit to fault or failure. You were an exception and gave us an ideal to strive for." 
 
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– John McCain appears to have handed his feud with President Trump down to the next generation, reports USA Today, and the latter took to Twitter to apparently respond to Meghan McCain's swipe at his campaign slogan while eulogizing her father on Saturday. "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," he tweeted Saturday afternoon from his golf course in Virginia, in response to her statement that "The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great." The anti-Trump vibes coming out of the funeral had his supporters fuming, notes Politico, with former adviser Katrina Pierson tweeting that unlike John McCain, "@realDonaldTrump ran for @POTUS ONE time and WON. Some people will never recover from that." Meanwhile, over at the New Yorker, Susan B. Glasser calls the funeral not "just another funeral of an elder statesman whose passing would be marked by flowery words about the end of an era. It was a meeting of the Resistance, under vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows."