Sarah Palin, top campaign aides not invited to John McCain funeral services

John McCain's 2008 presidential running mate Sarah Palin has been not invited to any of his memorial services.

A trio of top campaign staffers who played a pivotal role in selecting Palin for the vice presidential nomination have also not been invited.

McCain, who died aged 81 of brain cancer on Saturday, admitted in a memoir released in May that choosing Palin was a "mistake" and he regretted not choosing fellow Senator Joe Lieberman.

But Palin, the former governor of Alaska, was magnanimous despite the snub.

"Today we lost an American original," Palin tweeted after McCain's death.

"Sen. John McCain was a maverick and a fighter, never afraid to stand for his beliefs.

"John McCain was my friend. I will remember the good times."

McCain and Palin clashed during the 2008 campaign, with the senator unhappy with his running mate's ugly rhetoric.

Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and told fundraisers that small towns represented the "very pro-America areas of this great nation".

2008 campaign manager Steve Schmidt, senior adviser Nicolle Wallace and strategist John Weaver were also not invited.

McCain was apparently hurt that the trio revealed behind-the-scenes details of the campaign in the 2009 book Game Change, later made into a movie.

"That cathedral will be filled with people who stabbed McCain in the front," a McCain loyalist told Politico.

"Schmidt and Nicolle and Weaver stabbed him in the back and you can’t find a single McCain loyalist who will say different or feels different."

Also not invited to any memorial services is President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican who had a long-running stoush with McCain.

The US senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war is being remembered in a series of memorial services, with today’s event the second in his adopted hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.

From there his body will be moved to the US Capitol in Washington DC, where he will lie in state before a funeral on Saturday and his burial on Sunday.

Today former Vice President Joe Biden wiped away tears as he eulogised his former Senate colleague.

"I always thought of John as a brother, but we had a lot of family fights," Biden said.

"Where he'd part company with you was if you lacked the basic values of decency, respect.

"John's story is the American story. Grounded in respect and decency, basic fairness, the intolerance for the abuse of power."

Biden's son Beau died in 2016 from the same brain cancer that claimed McCain's life.

The Washington funeral will hear eulogies from George W Bush and Barack Obama, who defeated McCain in the 2000 presidential primary and the 2008 general election, respectively.

Also in attendance in Washington will be McCain's mother Roberta, who is 106.