The Ivanka And Jared Kushner Funeral Controversy Gets More Complicated

While doing the rounds to promote her new Audible memoir, "Bad Republican," former "The View" host Meghan McCain has been stoking controversy. She has been highlighting excerpts of her book – which see her criticizing Donald Trump for his repeated attacks on her father, the late Senator John McCain (ostensibly over his choosing bipartisanship over Trump's MAGA-inspired policies) — with different outlets. For context, leading up to and following McCain's death in 2018 at the age of 81, Trump mocked McCain's status as a decorated hero for his six-year imprisonment in a Vietnamese POW camp, per Politico, among other classy alleged moments. 

Meghan also recently discussed a passage from her book which detailed her experience seeing Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, along with her husband Jared Kushner, at McCain's funeral. According to the media personality, neither member of the couple had been invited to the service — one which then-President Trump was famously not invited to – and expounded upon her inner rage at their very presence. "I saw Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner sitting towards the back. As far as I knew, they had not been invited but they showed up anyway. Funeral crashers," she wrote (via The Washington Post).

But now, according to The Washington Post, it seems one current Republican lawmaker has gone on the record to dispute the basic facts of *Javanka's* attendance at the memorial, casting everything about Meghan's account in a new light. So what's going on here?

According to The Washington Post, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, stated in an interview with The Early that Meghan McCain's understanding of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's appearance at her father's 2018 funeral is slightly off. 

As Graham explained it, he understood why Meghan "was upset they were there" but she didn't quite have her story straight. "Their presence was approved," he told The Early (via WaPo) "She was upset they were there — I understand that, and she has hard feelings but I know what happened and nobody showed up uninvited," Graham added. "I love Meghan McCain and I understand how stressful all this has been for her and those who attack her dad will never be forgiven by her."

Citing The New York Times, WaPo corroborated Graham's statement; and it was Graham who "had cleared" the invitation to Trump and Kushner with the approval of Cindy McCain, the wife of John McCain and Meghan's mother. In an interview with Andy Cohen earlier in October, Meghan spoke on the excerpt as well, saying the couple attended the ceremony because it was an 'event they wanted to go to,'" (via The Daily News). Ultimately, this doesn't mean that Meghan was wrong to be offended they were there. And it's possible she had no knowledge of her mother's act of permission prior to the event.