Secret Service uses John McCain’s old code name one last time in touching tribute

The United States Secret Service isn’t known for its emotional side, but the agency lowered its collective shades on Monday to pay tribute to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The department tweeted a message that included McCain’s old code name from when he was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

McCain died on Saturday at the age of 81 after a battle with brain cancer. He will lie in state in the rotunda of the Arizona state Capitol on Wednesday and in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Friday before a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral on Saturday.

McCain will be buried on Sunday at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Chris Cuomo has hit back at suggestions that McCain's death is being used to “beat up the president” during a heated panel discussion with Rick Santorum and Bakari Sellers on Monday night.

Santorum levelled the accusation after footage was shown of Donald Trump ignoring questions from the press in relation to the senator’s passing.

Trump has garnered negative press since the passing of McCain, even turning down the release of an official White House statement that would have celebrated the late Republican and Vietnam War veteran as a “hero,” according to The Washington Post.

“I just don’t think it does anything to the memory of John McCain to use him as a cudgel to beat up the president,” Santorum said. “The media seems to have this fascination to try to use the death of John McCain to further belittle and beat up Donald Trump.”

The comments ignited the CNN anchor, who shot back with “you think we need to do that to find reasons to criticize the president? This is a moment that matters.”

Joining the already heated discussion, Sellers pointed out that under Trump the Republican Party had turned into “one of cowardice,” with members trying to “contort themselves into pretzels” in an attempt to defend the president’s behavior.

“The fact is, you have John McCain who is a war hero. Even my democrats, even the people on the left who want to chastise him for whatever his policy may have been, we’re saying that now is not the time,” he said.

“You have a president this week who did not stand up and show the best of what we can be, and that’s a problem. John McCain deserves all the glory today.”

During the discussion, Santorum also referred to remarks made by the CNN anchor’s borther, New York Gov.Andrew Cuomo, earlier this month that America was “never that great”.

“He said it and it was wrong and he corrected it. God forbid our president try that once,” Cuomo responded.

• This article originally appeared on HuffPost.