By Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Though Donald Trump was not invited to John McCain’s funeral service, he was not entirely absent from the proceedings. Meghan McCain, while eulogizing her late father, was not subtle in taking several pointed shots at the president during her remarks, including one that received a wave of applause from all of those gathered. “The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold,” McCain said. “She is resourceful and confident and secure. She meets her responsibilities, She speaks quietly because she is strong. America does not boast because she has no need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be great again because America was always great.”

McCain’s remarks were, in a way, also a eulogy for the Republican Party. “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness,” she continued, her voice choking up. “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 lived lives of comfort and privilege.”

McCain, like her father a fierce critic of Trump, held up the late senator as a foil to the moral failings epitomized by the president. “We live in an era where we knock down old American heroes for all their imperfections, when no leader wants to admit to fault,” McCain said, referencing the president’s repeated criticisms of her father and his hostility towards her family. “You were an exception, and you gave us an ideal to strive for. Look, I know you can see this gathering here in this cathedral. The nation is here to remember you.”

McCain also took some time to remember her father’s love for his family, sharing an anecdote in which she broke her collarbone as a child from falling off her horse, and her father told her to get right back up again once she’d healed. When she asked him what he wanted from his eulogy, she remembered him telling her, “Show them how tough you are.”