Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush were surprised when John McCain requested they deliver eulogies at his funeral, CNN reports.
McCain, 81, died Saturday after a year-long battle with brain cancer. The late Arizona senator was not particularly close with Obama or Bush, but he had respect for them.
"I think it is John McCain imparting a lesson in civility by asking the two men who defeated him to speak, as an example to America that differences in political views and contests shouldn't be so important that we lose our common bonds and the civility that is, or used to be, a hallmark of American democracy," Steve Duprey, a longtime friend of McCain's and a senior adviser in his 2008 campaign, told CNN.
Bush beat McCain in the Republican primary in 2000, and Obama defeated McCain in the 2008 presidential election.
President Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate in 2008, were not invited to McCain's funeral. McCain publicly sparred with Trump over the past two years,
McCain, who died Saturday at age 81 from brain cancer, will be buried in private at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on Sunday following a series of memorial services throughout the week.
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