White House flag returns to half-staff to honor McCain after outcry
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Two days after Senator John McCain’s death, the White House flag is back to full staff, while the U.S. Capitol’s still remains at half staff. Here are the rules to lowering flags for the passing of a member of Congress.
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – The U.S. flag flying over the White House was brought back down to half-staff Monday afternoon after an outcry over the decision to raise it just two days after the death of Arizona Sen. John McCain
In his first formal statement on McCain’s death, President Donald Trump said he respected McCain’s service and ordered the flags back down. Â
“Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country and, in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House.Â
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The flags flying above the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building were lowered late Saturday after news of the Arizona Republican’s death broke.Â
By Monday morning, the flags were at full-staff again. On Capitol Hill, where McCain served in the Senate for more than 30 years, the flags remained at half-staff.
Trump said he asked Vice President Mike Pence to offer an address at a ceremony for McCain at the U.S. Capitol on Friday.
“At the request of the McCain family, I have also authorized military transportation of Senator McCain’s remains from Arizona to Washington, D.C., military pallbearers and band support, and a horse and caisson transport during the service at the United States Naval Academy,” Trump said.Â
The president said White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security adviser John Bolton will represent his administration at McCain’s services.
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 time in office, 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.Â
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 his obituary by the Associated Press, 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 followed the U.S. flag code: The flags need to be lowered for a member of Congress only on the day of their death and the day after.
Trump spurred 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.
He lowered the flag for other public figures. When former first lady Barbara Bush died, Trump issued a proclamation in her honor – keeping the flags at half-staff until the day she was buried.
Amid an outpouring of praise for McCain – a former prisoner of war, a longtime lawmaker and two-time GOP presidential candidate – 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.
Monday, veterans groups criticized the decision to lower the flag for only two days.
“On the behalf of The American Legion’s two million wartime veterans, I strongly urge you to make an appropriate presidential proclamation noting Senator McCain’s death and legacy of service to our nation, and that our nation’s flag be half-staffed through his interment,” Denise Rohan, national commander of the American Legion, said in a statement.
The president’s full statement:
    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
More: Report: President Trump scrapped official statement praising Sen. John McCain
More: President Donald Trump’s brevity on John McCain speaks volumes about their strained relationship
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People are reflected as they look at the front page of the Arizona Republic featuring a picture of late Sen. John McCain at the Newseum in Washington, DC, on Aug. 27, 2018. He was a hero, a statesman who cut a towering figure in Washington. But for many in the increasingly angry world of American politics, John McCain will be missed for a far humbler virtue,simple civility. As Americans and others paid tribute to the late Republican senator, who died August 25, 2018 of cancer aged 81, some cited a 2008 interaction with a voter as symbolizing his famous insistence on fair and civil discourse.
Rick Davis, spokesperson for Sen. John McCain’s family, reacts as he speaks to the media during a news conference Monday, Aug. 27, 2018, in Phoenix. Davis discussed the memorial arraignments for McCain, the war hero who became the GOP’s standard-bearer in the 2008 election, and who died at the age of 81, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018, after battling brain cancer.
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