The nation’s capital bids its final farewell to the late former President George H.W. Bush on Wednesday in a service of prayer and praise.
**Follow all of the events on the Breitbart News Livewire below. All times in eastern.**
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12:18 PM — Former President George W. Bush eulogizes his father, George H.W. Bush.
12:12 PM — Simpson on Bush: “His epitaph perhaps just a single letter, the letter ‘L’ for loyalty. It coursed through his blood. Loyalty to his country. Loyalty to his family. Loyalty to his friends. Loyalty to the institutions of government.”
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12:05 PM — Simpson: “In George Bush’s theme of life… there was a simple credo: What would we do without family and friends?”
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12:02 PM — Alan Simpson, former United States senator, Wyoming will give a tribute to former President George H.W. Bush
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11:53 AM — Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney: “No occupant of the Oval Office was more courageous, more principled, more honorable than George Herbert Walker Bush”
11:51 AM — Brian Mulroney, 18th Prime Minister of Canada, eulogizes former Pres. George H.W. Bush
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George H.W. Bush’s biographer is hailing the late president as a noble man who made the world better and inadvertently made it chuckle, per the AP.
Historian Jon Meacham has told mourners at a Washington memorial service that Bush’s credo was, “Tell the truth, don’t blame people, be strong, do your best, try hard, forgive, stay the course.”
Meacham said Abraham Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature” and Bush’s thousand points of light are “companion verses in America’s national hymn.” Meacham says Bush “made our lives and the lives of nations freer, better, warmer and nobler.”
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The casket of former President George H.W. Bush has arrived at Washington National Cathedral in a lengthy, slow-moving motorcade that transported his family, friends and dignitaries.
Bush’s flag-draped coffin left the Capitol on Wednesday morning and was moved to the packed cathedral. The former president had been lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda since Monday.
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10:56 AM — The U.N. Security Council has paid tribute to the late former President George H.W. Bush, standing silently in his memory, reports the Associated Press.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was presiding over the U.N.’s most powerful body on Wednesday and asked the 15 members and diplomats in the crowded council chamber to observe a minute of silence to honor Bush at the start of a meeting on sustaining peace after conflict.
Speaking on behalf of the council, Ouattara said “President Bush left us following a long, illustrious career serving his country,” including as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, where he presided over the Security Council in 1972.
Ouattara conveyed the council’s “warm gratitude to the people and government of the United States of America” and condolences on Bush’s death.
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It’s an extraordinary scene inside the Washington National Cathedral, where former world leaders are mingling, waiting for a ceremony remembering former President George H.W. Bush to begin, per the Associated Press.
Former Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter are seated in a front-row pew.
President Donald Trump walked in and shook hands with Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who greeted him by saying “Good morning.” Trump did not shake hands with Bill and Hillary Clinton, who looked straight ahead.
Bill Clinton and Mrs. Obama smiled and chatted as music played. Carter is seated silently next to Hillary Clinton in the cavernous cathedral. Obama cracked up laughing at someone’s quip. Vice President Mike Pence shook Carter’s hand.
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Friends and family are gathering at Washington National Cathedral under tight security for a funeral service honoring late former President George H.W. Bush, per the Associated Press.
Wednesday’s national funeral service will cap three days of remembrance by dignitaries and ordinary citizens. It will bring together world envoys, the four remaining ex-presidents and President Donald Trump.
After Wednesday’s service, Bush’s remains will be returned to Houston to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before burial Thursday at his family plot.
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Former President George H.W. Bush’s casket has left the U.S. Capitol for a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, per the Associated Press.
Family, friends, congressional leaders and others gathered with military brass on the steps of the Capitol for the send-off Wednesday as cannons echoed a salute and a military band played “Hail to the Chief.”
Bush’s flag-draped coffin was carried to a waiting hearse for the procession to the cathedral. His son former President George W. Bush put his hand over heart at the plaza.
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A viewing for the 41st president at the hushed Capitol Rotunda closed Wednesday morning. A ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, the nexus of state funerals, will cap three days of remembrance by dignitaries and ordinary citizens as they honored the Republican president who oversaw the post-Cold War transition and led a successful Gulf War, only to lose re-election in a generational shift to Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992.
The four living ex-presidents are coming — among them, George W. Bush will eulogize his father — and President Donald Trump will attend but is not scheduled to speak. Also attending: one king (Jordan), one queen (Jordan), two princes (Britain, Bahrain), Germany’s chancellor and Poland’s president, among representatives of more than a dozen countries.
Also expected in the invitation-only crowd: Mike Lovejoy, a Kennebunkport electrician and fix-it man who has worked at Bush’s Maine summer estate since 1990 and says he was shocked and heartened to be asked to come.
On Tuesday, soldiers, citizens in wheelchairs and long lines of others on foot wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view Bush’s casket and honor a president whose legacy included World War military service and a landmark law affirming the rights of the disabled. Former Sen. Bob Dole, a compatriot in war, peace and political struggle, steadied himself out of his wheelchair and saluted his old friend and one-time rival.
After the national funeral service at the cathedral, Bush’s remains will be returned to Houston to lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before burial Thursday at his family plot on the presidential library grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station. His final resting place will be alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years who died in April, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia in 1953 at age 3.
Trump ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-staff for 30 days.
As at notable moments in his life, Bush brought together Republicans and Democrats in his death, and not only the VIPs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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