Update Aug. 27 at 4:30 pm: The White House reversed course Monday afternoon, and will fly the flag at half-staff until McCain’s body is buried, the president said in a proclamation, as a “mark of respect for the memory and longstanding service.” Flags will be lowered on “all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels” until sunset on the day of McCain’s burial. The American flag atop the White House was flying on the top of its mast on Monday morning after the death of Arizona senator John McCain, putting the presidential residence at odds with many other federal buildings in the United States. The senator died on Aug. 25, and American flags on the US Capitol Building and on other federal buildings are still flying at half-mast at time of writing. The flags in front of the US Capitol will fly at half mast until McCain “is buried,” an official in the Congressional flag office told Quartz. Reuters/Joshua Roberts Flags in front of the Washington Monument are lowered for Senator McCain’s death. The White House lowered the flag briefly on August 26, after McCain’s death was announced. White House staff also drafted a statement on McCain’s death that mentioned the Navy veteran’s long military service and referred to him as a “hero,” but Trump did not allow them to issue it, the Washington Post and CNN reported. Instead, Trump tweeted his “sympathies and respect” to McCain’s family, and posted the same quote on Instagram over a photo of himself. During Trump’s political rise, he and McCain clashed repeatedly: Trump mocked McCain’s war hero status; McCain criticized the way Trump spoke about Gold Star military families and his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. McCain also torpedoed Trump’s attempt to repeal Obamacare with a dramatic thumbs-down gesture. Flying the White House flag at full mast goes against earlier presidential protocol (after Senator Ted Kennedy’s death, the White House kept its flag at half-mast until he was buried, for example). But it doesn’t run counter to written proclamations about how the flag should be flown. In 1954, president Dwight Eisenhower issued this presidential proclamation about flying the flag after the death of major political military figures: The flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the Federal Government in the metropolitan area of the District of Columbia on the day of death and on the following day upon the death of a United States Senator, Representative, Territorial Delegate, or the Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and it shall also be flown at half-staff on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the Federal Government in the State, Congressional District, Territory, or Commonwealth of such Senator, Representative, Delegate, or Commissioner, respectively, from the day of death until interment. McCain will be buried at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, this coming weekend. His family requested that former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama deliver eulogies at his funeral in Washington’s National Cathedral, the New York Times reports. Trump is not expected to attend.<doc-sep>A full two days after John McCain’s death, President Donald Trump finally signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until McCain is laid to rest. The announcement was made minutes after the flag at the White House returned to half-staff, following a day where it was flown at full-staff in an apparent snub of the Republican senator and war hero who died of brain cancer on Saturday at age 81. The flag continued to fly at half-staff at other government sites across Washington, including at the Capitol and at the Washington Monument. The up-and-down flag drama laid bare the lack of sympathy Trump showed for McCain throughout his public battle with brain cancer and even after he died. At an Oval Office press event earlier Monday, the president refused to address McCain, sitting in silence as reporters repeatedly shouted questions about the late senator’s life and legacy. Trump briefly addressed McCain’s death in a tweet offering his “deepest sympathies and respect” to his family, but did not mention his military service. The president reportedly vetoed a statement drafted by White House officials that labeled McCain a “hero.” In the time since the senator’s death, Trump has tweeted about Tiger Woods, retired NFL star Jim Brown, his own polling numbers, economic figures, and Hillary Clinton’s emails. Throughout McCain’s terminal illness, Trump continued to publicly disrespect him. He declined to say McCain’s name when signing a bill that was named for him, and said he was “not a war hero” despite enduring torture during more than five years held in Hanoi as a prisoner of war. McCain has been eulogized from across the political spectrum from George W. Bush and Barack Obama—both of whom McCain had requested to speak at his funeral—and even in Vietnam, where the man who was in charge of the prison where McCain was kept praised his ”toughness.” But the current commander in chief has failed to muster any warm words—and has now thrown away tradition and, despite enjoying lecturing others about respecting the flag, appears to be using it again as a political weapon. He’s criticized National Football League players who protest police brutality as failing to respect the flag and the national anthem, and at the State of the Union address in January praised a kid for starting a movement that placed flags on veterans’ graves. “Preston’s reverence for those who serve our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put out hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem,” Trump said. In June, the president turned heads by giving a U.S. flag on a podium an awkward embrace at a conference for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, where he delivered a stinging rebuke of immigration policy and touted his disastrous “zero-tolerance” border policy. He also repeatedly and awkwardly hugged the flag—breaking into uncharted territory of protocol and Old Glory etiquette—during campaign stops in New Hampshire and Florida. McCain will lie in state in both the Arizona Capitol and the U.S. Capitol Rotunda before his burial in Annapolis on Sunday.<doc-sep>Editor's note: Shortly after this column was published, the White House lowered the flag to half staff. Can President Donald Trump get any smaller? I wouldn’t have expected — or wanted to hear — effusive presidential praise for John McCain as he lay dying, given Trump’s hatred of the Arizona senator who dared to speak truth to power. (One of two, actually.) I wouldn’t have expected Trump to thank a genuine American hero who understood, better than the rest of us, the sometimes-chilling requirements of duty and sacrifice, of freedom and honor. But, really, would it kill the president of the United States to fly the U.S. flag above the White House at half-mast until McCain is laid to rest this weekend? Other senators were honored longer Yet there it is, the flag flying at full staff on Monday morning, not even 48 hours after McCain died. I can only imagine the party atmosphere inside the Oval Office. More on McCain:What I learned about John McCain during 20 years covering him McCain the rebel:McCain wanted to 'raise hell' and leave it all on the field On his legacy:John McCain, stormy and unchangeable, taught us to never give in to torture Outside, however, in the real world, America is mourning a man the likes of which we we will not see again (unfortunately). NBC News is reporting at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer have asked the Department of Defense to step in to ensure that McCain is given his due atop the people's house. The flag must be at half-staff on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels in Washington, D.C., on the day of and the day after a senator dies, according to guidelines put out by the Department of Veterans' Affairs. But other senators have been honored for longer periods of time and today, flags across Washington, D.C., remain at half-staff as America mourns. Except for the White House. What an extraordinary thing we are seeing, when Senate Republican and Democratic leaders must appeal to the military to try to ensure that an American hero gets his due. Laurie Roberts is a columnist at The Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. You can follow her on Twitter:@LaurieRoberts.<doc-sep>Flags across the country were lowered this weekend to mark the death of Arizona Sen. John McCain on Saturday from brain cancer. Early Monday morning, however, flags at the White House had been returned to their usual position, prompting figurative gasps from Washington journalists and Trump critics. Flag back at full staff atop WH. Pres Trump did not issue proclamation on the death of @SenJohnMcCain, which usually calls for flags to remain at half-staff through the day of interment, which is Sunday at the @NavalAcademy. pic.twitter.com/NGasNPT0VB — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) August 27, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Dramatic photos contrasted the apparently defiant flagpole atop the White House with half-staff flags surrounding the Washington Monument behind it: Fairly striking image -- all of the flags surrounding the Washington Monument are at half-staff, though the flag atop the White House was raised to full staff just after midnight. pic.twitter.com/BwKRbqKk0G — Alex Mallin (@alex_mallin) August 27, 2018 Advertisement By midmorning on Monday, the flags surrounding the Washington Monument had been raised back to full staff. Meanwhile, the White House lowered its own flag again by midafternoon, apparently bowing, almost literally, to public pressure. But never mind! The takeaway for many was that the White House’s raised flag was akin to a raised middle finger, and a dramatic break from custom and code. The takeaway for many was that the White House’s raised flag was akin to a raised middle finger. In fact, however, the White House’s decision to raise the flag on Monday morning was in exact accordance to the country’s official guidelines for flying the flag at half-staff. The nonbinding U.S. Flag Code, adopted in 1942, dictates that when a member of Congress dies, the flag should be lowered “on the day of death and the following day.” A similar proclamation about flag display made by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954 and amended in 1969 to include members of Congress recommends the same duration. McCain died on Saturday, and the White House flag was lowered through the end of Sunday. Advertisement Advertisement The White House flag itself was not the problem, according to John Hartvigsen, president of the North American Vexillological Association from 2014 to 2017. The violation of custom was the president’s failure to issue a statement ordering the rest of the country’s flags lowered, as he did when Barbara Bush and Billy Graham died, to take a few recent examples. “If he had done that, there would not be all of this confusion,” Hartvigsen said, noting that Trump could have skipped a flowery statement of mourning and issued only a simple flag order. “He created a problem for himself that he didn’t have to create.” Only presidents, governors, and the mayor of Washington have the formal right to order flags to half-staff, but in practice, flag flyers have wide latitude. House Speaker Paul Ryan controls the flags at the U.S. Capitol, for example, and he told HuffPost on Monday that flags there will be lowered through the day of McCain’s burial next weekend. Some governors, including John Kasich in Ohio, have followed suit. The mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, ordered flags at City Hall be flown at half-staff through Monday evening, according to a spokeswoman. Advertisement Advertisement It’s also true that flags are often lowered for longer periods when a person of greater national significance dies. When Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy died in 2009, for example, President Barack Obama lowered White House flags to half-staff for five days. Then again, President Obama was an unusually enthusiastic flag lowerer, ordering American flags to half-staff more than any president in the country’s history, and far more often than his immediate predecessors. The American Legion released a statement on Monday imploring the president to half-staff the flag until McCain’s burial. Hartvigsen’s perspective is that if anything, the country perhaps lowers the flag too often these days, with death-through-burial gradually becoming the new standard for almost anyone of note. Advertisement It’s possible that Trump intended to send a direct message with the White House flag, of course. But it’s also possible that he pays little attention to its status. Just this weekend, after all, the president was photographed apparently coloring the American flag incorrectly at an event with schoolchildren in Ohio. The point is that there is no need to resort to contortionist vexillology to understand that Trump despised John McCain and that he has no intention of faking respect upon his death. He reportedly rejected a statement his staff prepared on McCain’s heroism and ignored a question from a reporter Monday about McCain’s legacy. It would be interesting to learn that Trump declined to keep the flag lowered beyond the bare minimum number of hours, but it would give us no new information about his personal pettiness or his feelings about McCain. Advertisement Advertisement To be fair, however, we do have one piece of evidence that Trump views flag lowering as an important symbol. In 2015, some conservatives were outraged that Obama had not immediately ordered flags to half-staff after a gunman killed five service members in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He eventually did make the order, but in the meantime then-candidate Trump issued a press release scolding the president and ordering flags on his own properties lowered. At the time, the move was widely perceived to be an attempt to shore up support with veterans: Trump had recently offended them by insulting John McCain.<doc-sep>
On Monday morning, the U.S. flags flying at the White House were raised to full-staff after they had been lowered to half-staff over the weekend to honor Senator John McCain, who died on Saturday. The quick return of the flags to full-staff has shocked some and raised questions about what it signals. Was it a sign of President Donald Trump's thoughts on McCain, with whom he has famously feuded, or was it the White House following flag protocol? United States Flag Code dictates where, when and how the flag should be displayed. To be in accordance with the code, when a flag is set to be flown at half-staff, it first must be raised to the top of the flagpole and then lowered, not simply moved to the halfway mark. Following the death of principal government figures, including senators, representatives and governors, the president can order the flag to be flown at half-staff as a mark of respect for their memory. The length of time the flag remains at half-staff depends on the person's title. The code states: President or former president: 30 days from the day of death Vice president, chief justice, retired chief justice or speaker of the House of Representatives: 10 days from the day of death Associate justice of the Supreme Court, secretary of an executive or military department, former vice president or governor: from the day of death until burial For members of Congress, which the Flag Code defines as a senator, representative, delegate or the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico, the flag is to be flown at half-staff on the day of death and the following day. McCain died on Saturday, and the flag was lowered to half-staff that day. The flag was returned to full-staff on Monday morning. Shortly before 4:00 p.m. EDT, the Associated Press tweeted that the flag at the White House had once again been lowered to half-staff. In a presidential proclamation issued on Monday afternoon, Trump announced that flags would be lowered to half-staff until sunset on the day of McCain's internment as a mark of respect for his "memory and longstanding service." Some called the raising of the flag to full-staff a disgrace, while others pointed out that the flags at the Capitol remained at half-staff on Monday morning. I think it may be, quite literally, the pettiest thing I’ve ever seen. — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 27, 2018 U.S. flags at the White House returned to full staff on Monday morning as the nation continued to mourn the death of Sen. John McCain. In a pathetic act of spite by Donald Trump, flags were lowered for only one day following McCain’s death. https://t.co/jZuuDA4w25 — Jon Cooper 🇺🇸 (@joncoopertweets) August 27, 2018 Raising the flag to disrespect a deceased American war hero and Senator is much more un-American than kneeling before it for civil rights. — Pat Cunnane (@PatCunnane) August 27, 2018 While code dictates the flag to be flown at half-staff on a congressional member's day of death and the following day, some people noted that the tradition was to keep the flag at half-staff until the person was buried. Following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, President Barack Obama, Trump's predecessor, opted to not follow the code and announced that the flags would be lowered to half-staff for five days. Kennedy died on August 25, 2009, and Obama's declaration kept flags at half-staff until August 30, 2009. McCain died just shy of his 82nd birthday after a battle with glioblastoma, a complex and aggressive form of brain cancer. Both he and Kennedy battled glioblastoma, and both died on the same day, August 25, nine years apart. In a statement posted to Twitter, McCain's daughter Meghan announced her father's death and praised him for being an incredible dad for the 33 years they had together. "All that I am is thanks to him," she wrote. "Now that he is gone, the task of my lifetime is to live up to his example, his expectations, and his love." Although her father is gone and the whole family grieves his loss, Meghan said "his flame lives on" in each and every one of them. Meghan concluded her statement with a message of her faith, saying she knew her father woke up to "something more glorious than anything on this earth." McCain will be buried in Annapolis, Maryland, on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy, next Sunday, following him lying in state at the Arizona and U.S. Capitols.