Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a tearful eulogy for his longtime friend and Senate colleague John McCain on Thursday, during a private memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a tearful eulogy for his longtime friend and Senate colleague John McCain on Thursday, during a private memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona. Biden, 75, began by saying, “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain.” Get push notifications with news, features and more. He then mentioned giving eulogies for other great women and men in the past but added, “This one’s hard.” The former vice president choked up and wiped away a tear before continuing, “I always thought of John as a brother. “We had a hell of a lot of family fights,” he joked to laughter from the crowd. Memorial Service Held For Sen. John McCain At North Phoenix Baptist Church Joe Biden | Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Memorial Service Held For Sen. John McCain At North Phoenix Baptist Church Joe Biden | Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty McCain, Phoenix, USA - 30 Aug 2018 Joe Biden | Credit: Jae C Hong/AP/Shutterstock Biden went on to recall how the two quickly “hit it off” when they first met in the 1970s, while McCain was serving as a liaison between the Navy and the Senate. The two later worked together in the U.S. Senate for more than 20 years. He added that their “great friendship” transcended whatever political differences they had. “Because above all, we understood the same thing: All politics is personal. It’s all about trust,” Biden said. “I trusted John with my life.” Biden later spoke about his late son, Beau, who died in May 2015 of glioblastoma, the same aggressive brain cancer that took McCain’s life and also that of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. “The disease that took John’s life — that took our friend Ted Kennedy’s life, that took my son Beau’s life — is brutal, relentless, unforgiving,” Biden said. “It takes so much from those we love, and from the families who love them, that in order to survive we have to remember how they lived, not how they died.” “The image I carry with me of Beau is strong, vibrant: the best man his brother Hunter and I ever knew. I’m sure Vicky has her image of Teddy, maybe looking so alive on that beautiful sailboat of his,” Biden said. “Find your image of John, remember it: his smile, his laugh, a moment on the ranch, at a dinner, on a vacation, when you would turn and see him just staring at you, or when you saw the sheer joy that crossed his face the moment he knew he was about to take the stage or go to the floor of the Senate — and start a fight. God, he loved it.” Biden hailed McCain as a hero but said that “John’s story is the American story.” “America’s future didn’t rest on heroes,” he said. “Heroes didn’t build this country. Ordinary people given half a chance are capable of doing extraordinary things.” Wednesday’s service is one of several honoring McCain this week, after the iconic Arizona Republican died of brain cancer on Saturday at 81. Memorial Service Held For Sen. John McCain At North Phoenix Baptist Church Joe Biden | Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Memorial Service Held For Sen. John McCain At North Phoenix Baptist Church Cindy McCain and son Jack McCain | Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty McCain, Phoenix, USA - 30 Aug 2018 Sen. John McCain’s casket | Credit: Jae C Hong/AP/Shutterstock News: Sen. John McCain Memorial Service The casket of Sen. John McCain is taken from the hearse at the North Phoenix Baptist Church in Phoenix | Credit: Tom Tingle/The Republic/USA TODAY NETWORK/Sipa McCain will also lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Friday before being transported to Washington, D.C., for a memorial service Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral. The following day, he will be laid to rest in Annapolis, Maryland, in a private funeral service at the Naval Academy, of which he was a graduate. Before his death, Sen. McCain asked that former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush also deliver eulogies in his honor, according to CBS News. The New York Times reported that two unnamed Republicans familiar with the funeral plans indicated Obama and Bush have already been requested to speak at McCain’s funeral. Biden — who was the running mate of McCain’s one-time political adversary, future President Barack Obama, in the 2008 campaign — reacted to McCain’s death in a lengthy statement on his Twitter account. “John was many things — a proud graduate of the Naval Academy, a Senate colleague, a political,” he wrote in part. “But, to me, more than anything, John was a friend. America will miss John McCain. The world will miss John McCain. And I will miss him dearly.” “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway,” special assistant Kelly Sadler, who has since left the White House, reportedly said during a closed-door meeting at the White House. The White House did not deny the comments in a statement obtained by PEOPLE, simply stating, “We respect Senator McCain’s Service to our nation and he and his family are in our prayers during this difficult time.” Biden fired back in a statement at the time, “People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday. John McCain is a genuine hero — a man of valor whose sacrifices for his country are immeasurable. As he fights for is [sic] life, he deserves better — so much better.<doc-sep>In a tribute that capped days of mourning in Arizona for John McCain, former Vice President Joe Biden said the senator exemplified values that will endure his passing. Eulogizing his friend, with whom he traveled the world and on whom he leaned in times of personal pain, Biden spoke of the "McCain code," values forged during his days in the Navy and lived every day afterward. Values that Biden said will endure. With his voice rising inside the cavernous North Phoenix Baptist Church, Biden rejected the notion that McCain reflects the end of an era. "Things have changed so much in America, they look at him as if John came from another age because he lived by a different code, an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, character, integrity, duty mattered," Biden said. "The truth is John’s code was ageless, is ageless. It wasn’t about politics with John. You could disagree on substance," Biden added. "It was about the underlying values that animated everything John did." Biden said most of those who knew him will miss McCain’s character, but for the McCain family, they have lost the man in their lives. For them, Biden spoke not just as a Washington colleague, but someone who has lost a loved one to cancer. Biden's son, Beau, died of a similar brain cancer in 2015 at age 46. "For that, there is no balm but time," he said. "Time and your memories of a life lived well, lived fully." McCain's funeral drew 24 members of the U.S. Senate and more than 3,000 others whose lives he touched. More: McCain and religion: Senator was raised Episcopal, attended Baptist church More: How John McCain helped reunite a family of Polish refugees More: Who will speak at McCain's memorial services in Washington It was the final public goodbye to Arizona for McCain, who died Saturday. The service began with McCain's daughter Bridget reading verses from Ecclesiastes, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, a time to die." Former state Attorney General Grant Woods, a former chief of staff to McCain, then talked about his time working with him. Woods said McCain loved the people of Arizona, the diversity of the community and the state's natural beauty. "If John McCain fell in love with Arizona, Arizona fell in love with John McCain. We ran a lot of races here, a lot of elections. We never lost," Woods said. Woods kept those in the pews laughing, recounting stories about McCain's occasionally errant driving and his legendary slight of a senior center. He also reminded that McCain was a principled fighter for underdogs and for his country. "He was resolute. He was courageous every step of the way," Woods said. "He was America's hero." Tommy Espinoza, president of the Raza Development Fund Inc., remembered McCain as a good friend who kept his word. McCain paid his first personal visit to his home, Espinoza said, on what turned out to be McCain's birthday. McCain asked Espinoza to co-chair his first Senate campaign knowing he was a Democrat. And McCain showed an appreciation of the immigrant community, Espinoza said, adding in words with a political point: "He did understand us. He understood all of us, whether it was white, black, brown or Asian. To him, it didn't make any difference. What he knew is that we all make America great. We all make America great." Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald also paid tribute to McCain, saying it was an honor to know him. The McCain family has been part of the congregation of this church, at the southeast corner of Central Avenue and Bethany Home Road, for more than 25 years. McCain attended the church for decades, though he was never baptized, according to a 2007 interview with McClatchy Newspapers. "I didn't find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs," he said at the time. He held at least one of his signature town halls there, in August 2009, when the nation was fixated on the then-pending Affordable Care Act, the legislation he saved in July 2017 with a dramatic thumbs down Senate vote. But in 2009, when he opposed the bill, some in the crowd at the church denounced McCain. One man shouted, "Keep on lying McCain!" as he walked out of the event. After the event, McCain offered an assessment of another Senate giant, Democrat Ted Kennedy, who had died the day before, from glioblastoma as well. He chose words similar to the ones now used to describe him. "He was an honorable combatant. He fought for what he believed in," McCain said in 2009. "I think he became an institution within the institution, and we'll all miss him."<doc-sep>Among the speakers Thursday was Grant Woods, McCain’s former chief of staff, who retold one of the earliest anecdotes from the epic that was the senator’s life. It was about a prison guard in Vietnam who showed McCain unexpected kindness by loosening the painful ropes around his wrists and, much later in his imprisonment, drawing a cross in the dirt for him as a sort of Christmas gift.<doc-sep>Not long after Senator John McCain learned last summer that he had terminal brain cancer, he began convening meetings every Friday in his Capitol Hill office with a group of trusted aides. The subject was his funeral. He obsessed over the music, selecting the Irish ballad “Danny Boy” and several patriotic hymns. He choreographed the movement of his coffin from Arizona, his home state, to Washington. And in April, when he knew the end was coming, he began reaching out to Republicans, Democrats and even a Russian dissident with requests that they deliver eulogies and serve as pallbearers. By the time he died on Saturday, Mr McCain had carefully stage-managed a four-day celebration of his life — but what was also an unmistakable rebuke to President Donald Trump and his agenda. For years, Mr Trump had used Twitter and the presidential bully pulpit to mock and condemn the senator from Arizona. In death, Mr McCain found a way to have the last word, even quietly making it clear through friends that Mr Trump was not welcome at the services. Recommended Politicians pay respects as John McCain lays in state “I think it’s fair to say that they have a very different view of this country and what this country means, here and abroad,” said Mark Salter, the senator’s long-time friend and co-author who sat with Mr McCain — often with a lump in his throat — during the many discussions about his looming death and how to mark it. “His overall message was: ‘It doesn’t have to be this shitty.’ ” The series of events honouring Mr McCain are the kind of grandiose spectacle that is normally reserved for someone who became president, not someone who twice failed to do so. Friends said that Mr McCain was surprised by the level of interest in his death even as he planned it. When advisers suggested that his coffin should lie in state at the Arizona state Capitol building, Mr McCain said he believed the legislature would never approve such a rare honour for him, recalled Rick Davis, who has been at Mr McCain’s side for decades and served as his 2008 campaign chairman. “Every inch of the way, he underestimated what he thought this would be about,” Mr Davis said. The week’s memorial events began in Arizona on Wednesday, when his body was taken to the Capitol building, and will continue on Thursday at a service at North Phoenix Baptist Church. The procession will then shift to the nation’s capital, when Mr McCain’s coffin will arrive at an air base outside Washington as the president is holding one of his raucous, campaign-style rallies for supporters in Indiana. By the weekend, when virtually all of official Washington — Democrats and Republicans alike — gathers at the National Cathedral for a nationally televised farewell, Mr Trump is expected to have retreated to Camp David, where White House aides hope he will contain his anger at the attention being lavished on Mr McCain. John McCain: US Senator in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2000 John McCain waves to crowds at The University of Portland in Oregon. McCain was campaigning for Republican nominee George W. Bush AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 1967 Senator John Mccain In A Hanoi Hospital During The Vietnam War November, 1967 Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 1993 John McCain, a former POW, looks at a display of personal belongings of American POWs at the joint POW/MIA archives center in the Hanoi Army Museum AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 1999 Republican Senator John McCain announces his official bid for the 2000 White House in Nashua, New Hampshire. Evoking five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, McCain highlighted his own sacrifice and his 17-year record of public service in the US Congress AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 1999 Republican presidential candidate John McCain poses with an A-4 jet -- similar to the one which he was piloting when he was shot down during the Vietnam War -- on the deck of the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier in New York. McCain, who flew off of the Intrepid during the Vietnam War, but was not on it when he was shot down, was at the Intrepid to receive the 1999 Intrepid Freedom Award AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2000 Republican presidential hopeful John McCain answers questions at a news conference in New York AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2000 US Arizona Senator and Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain smiles as he speaks on the phone during a radio show interview from his hotel room in Los Angeles AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2000 US Arizona Senator and Republican presidential hopeful John McCain reacts to cheers from the crowd after speaking in a rally at the Santa Clara University on the eve of the multi-state SuperTuesday primaries AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2000 US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) smiles as he is interviewed on WGIR-AM radio in Manchester as he campaigns to become the Republican candidate for president of the United States AFP/Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2002 John McCain on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2004 Senator John McCain speaks at the Victor Awards in Las Vegas Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2008 US Senators Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, John McCain and former senator Phil Gramm watch the Super Bowl at the Hyatt Regency Boston. McCain was leading in most polls over rival contender former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney before the biggest "Super Tuesday" in American history Getty John McCain: US Senator in pictures John McCain - 2009 John McCain shakes hands with Dorothy Cross, great niece of the first African American heavyweight boxing champion John Arthur "Jack" Johnson.<doc-sep>
Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. will brief the media on Tuesday, Aug. 28, at 10 a.m. EDT, in the Pentagon Briefing Room (2E973). DAILY SCHEDULE: Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. brief the media at 10 a.m. EDT in the Pentagon Briefing Room (2E973). Both U.S. and foreign journalists without a Pentagon building pass must be pre-registered in the new Pentagon Visitor Management System to attend this briefing; plan on being escorted from the River Entrance Pedestrian Bridge or the Pentagon Metro Entrance Facility only. Please arrive no later than 45 minutes before the briefing; have proof of affiliation and photo identification. Please call 703-697-5131 for any questions and escort into the building. The briefing will also be streamed live on www.defense.gov/live. Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis hosts an enhanced honor cordon welcoming Minister of Defense Ryamizard Ryacudu of Indonesia, to the Pentagon at 2:30 p.m. EDT on the steps of the River Entrance. All journalists desiring to cover the cordon must obtain a wristband from security screening. Journalists without a Pentagon facility access card must go through security screening at the base of the River Entrance Pedestrian Bridge, and will be escorted to the cordon from there. Security screening will begin at approximately 1:45 p.m. EDT; have proof of affiliation and two forms of photo identification. Journalists with a Pentagon facility access card, and whom have entered the building prior to 1:30 p.m. EDT, may go through security screening at the River Entrance to obtain their wristband. All journalists wishing to cover the honor cordon, including those with a Pentagon facility access card, must be in place no later than 2:15 p.m. EDT. Once security screening has been initiated at the base of the bridge, all journalists entering the building via the bridge for any reason, including those with a Pen Obama on McCain: We are all in his debt WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 1: Cindy McCain looks on as a joint military service casket team carries the casket of the late Senator John McCain following his funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral, September 1, 2018 in Washington, DC. Former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered eulogies for McCain in front of the 2,500 invited guests. McCain will be buried on Sunday at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Former Vice President Joe Biden wipes a tear away while giving a tribute during memorial service at North Phoenix Baptist Church for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) (CNN) — Before the plane carrying his casket rose to the skies for one final flight to Washington, DC, the late Sen. John McCain got his final sendoff from Arizona on Thursday with a funeral that honored both his enduring commitment to bipartisanship and the state that “enchanted and claimed” him. Almost a quarter of McCain’s fellow senators, Democrats and Republicans, traveled to Arizona to remember him during a carefully executed program that began at the Arizona State Capitol, continued to the Baptist church where he worshiped and ended at the Phoenix airport, where hundreds of Arizona National Guardsmen gave him one final salute. McCain’s flag-draped casket was carried with full military honors from the Capitol, where more than 10,000 Arizonans visited Wednesday to pay their respects, to North Phoenix Baptist Church. With family, friends, scores of former aides and 1,000 average Arizonans in the audience, McCain was eulogized by figures of all political persuasions from former Vice President Joe Biden, to his former chief of staff and potential successor Grant Woods to Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. They remembered McCain with laughter and tears, as all the speakers touched on the values he had imparted to them – a shared humanity, a commitment to civility and compromise and the ideal of country before party. “My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I love John McCain,” Biden said, in an opening quip that captured the tone of the service. Woods, who recalled the first of many terrifying drives with McCain on his first day as a young chief of staff, described the life that he and so many other aides had lived with McCain. It was, Woods said, “a little bit harrowing, a little bit wild … but a lot of fun.