President Obama has ordered flags at the White House and other federal buildings to fly at half-staff after mounting criticism over the delay in honoring five armed forces members killed last week by a gunman. 
 
 Obama's proclamation calls for the flags to remain at half-staff through Saturday “as a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on July 16.” 
 
 White House flag lowered to half-staff in honor of service members killed in Chattanooga pic.twitter.com/S2b9OSfrVH — Dan Linden (@DanLinden) July 21, 2015 
 
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 “Our thoughts and prayers as a Nation are with the service members killed last week in Chattanooga. We honor their service. We offer our gratitude to the police officers and first responders who stopped the rampage and saved lives,” Obama said in a presidential proclamation released Tuesday. 
 
 “We draw strength from yet another American community that has come together with an unmistakable message to those who would try to do us harm: We do not give into fear. You cannot divide us. And you will not change our way of life.” 
 
 Obama announced his decision hours after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) ordered flags at the U.S. Capitol to be flown at half-staff. 
 
 Ahead of Obama's decision, conservatives lined up to pan the president for failing to lower the flag. They noted that various governors around the country have done so and that the White House had lowered its flags after other mass shootings. 
 
 Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, issued a statement earlier Tuesday asking Obama to do the “right thing” by lowering the flags. And Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, panned Obama as well. 
 
 “Five service members were killed on American soil, and the idea that the Commander in Chief is so far unwilling to lower flags in their honor is unconscionable,” he said. 
 
 “The flag and all it represents is sacred to our military, and the President must know that lowering the flag is a signal of honor and respect. The President should make this call immediately.” 
 
 Marcus Luttrell, a retired Navy SEAL whose story became the bestselling book Lone Survivor and a movie starring Mark Wahlberg, also took to Facebook on Monday night to call on the president to lower the flag. ||||| (CNN) The White House and U.S. Capitol both lowered flags to half staff by Tuesday afternoon, after they were out of sync Tuesday in their tributes to the five U.S. service members who were slain by a gunman in Chattanooga last week. 
 
 House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky announced Tuesday that flags at the Capitol would be lowered to half-staff in honor of the victims. 
 
 "Out of respect for their courageous service and sacrifice to our nation, flags at the U.S. Capitol are being lowered to half-staff," Boehner said in a statement. 
 
 But at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the flags at the White House noticeably remained at full-staff. Aides to the president have repeatedly declined to discuss whether the flags at the White House would be similarly lowered. Boehner's office said Tuesday that they had alerted the White House of their plans. 
 
 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee An FBI investigator works outside a military recruiting center where a gunman opened fire Thursday, July 16, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Authorities say Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, opened fire first on the recruiting station and then moved to a U.S. Navy facility seven miles away. At the Navy facility, he fatally shot four U.S. Marines and wounded three other people before he died in police gunfire. A U.S. Navy sailor later died from his wounds. Hide Caption 1 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee Abdulazeez was born in Kuwait and had Jordanian citizenship, law enforcement officials said. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Hide Caption 2 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee A woman places a balloon and flowers at a makeshift memorial outside the military recruiting center on Friday, July 17. Hide Caption 3 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee The Rev. Drew McCallie prays during a church service in Chattanooga on July 16. Hide Caption 4 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee Members of the FBI gather evidence at the scene of the recruiting center shooting on July 16. Hide Caption 5 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee A police car blocks the entrances to the U.S. Navy Reserve Center on July 16. Hide Caption 6 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee A car believed to be driven by Abdulazeez is seen on the grounds of the Navy facility. Hide Caption 7 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee WTVC's Drew Bollea heard gunshots on Amnicola Highway near the Navy facility. Hide Caption 8 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee The gunman first opened fire at this military recruitment office located in a strip mall off Lee Highway in Chattanooga. Hide Caption 9 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee The entrance to the military recruiting office is seen riddled with bullet holes on July 16. Hide Caption 10 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee Blue evidence markers, believed to be the location of spent shell casings, can be seen here. Gina Mule, a server at a restaurant who took this photo, said she saw a man in a car firing a "high-powered rifle" at the recruiting offices at about 10:50 a.m. ET Thursday. Hide Caption 11 of 12 Photos: Deadly shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee An officer patrols the parking lot of the recruitment center. Hide Caption 12 of 12 
 
 "I don't have more information about the status of the flag over the White House," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday. Earnest had nearly the same response for reporters Tuesday. 
 
 Read More ||||| The moves were emblematic of President Donald Trump’s strained relationship with the late Sen. John McCain, a former GOP standard-bearer who identified as a Republican maverick long before the president arrived on the scene. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Trump grabs a piece of McCain's spotlight The White House returned flags to half-staff after Trump was criticized for perceived snubs of the late senator. 
 
 President Donald Trump on Monday grabbed a piece of the spotlight back from the late Sen. John McCain, creating a familiar will-he-or-won’t-he narrative that ended with the White House formally ordering flags lowered to half-staff in remembrance. 
 
 An all-day outcry over the White House decision to raise the flags was finally resolved with a statement attributed to the president himself expressing “respect” for McCain’s service and announcing that he’d signed a proclamation ordering flags lowered until McCain is interred later this week. 
 
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 The back and forth mirrored Trump’s actions over the weekend. He maintained steadfast silence on Friday, as Republicans and Democrats alike rushed to celebrate the longtime Arizona Republican senator after an announcement from his office that he was ending cancer treatment. The president remained quiet, finally tweeting a condolence Saturday after McCain’s death was announced. 
 
 The moves were emblematic of Trump’s strained relationship with McCain, a former GOP standard-bearer who identified as a Republican maverick long before Trump arrived on the scene with his own unique brand of iconoclastic politics. 
 
 “Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country and, in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House. 
 
 McCain, a celebrated war hero and two-time presidential candidate, died late Saturday afternoon in his home state of Arizona after a battle with brain cancer. 
 
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 In a posthumous statement, McCain took a jab at the president, implicitly criticizing Trump’s tendency to sow division and reward personal loyalty. 
 
 “We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe,” McCain said in his statement, which was read aloud at the Arizona state capitol by McCain’s longtime aide Rick Davis. “We weaken it when we hide behind walls rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.” 
 
 Trump had a strained relationship with McCain, suggesting at one point during the 2016 campaign that the senator, who was tortured as a POW during the Vietnam War, was not a war hero because he had been captured, and "I like people who weren’t captured." 
 
 More recently, the president has often recalled, negatively, McCain's deciding thumbs-down vote against a GOP bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. 
 
 Trump said in his statement that he asked Vice President Mike Pence to offer an address at the ceremony honoring McCain at the U.S. Capitol on Friday. Trump's chief of staff, John Kelly, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and national security adviser John Bolton will also represent the Trump administration at the services, the president said. 
 
 In addition, military transportation has been authorized to move McCain's remains from Arizona to Washington, D.C., along with the service of military pallbearers and band support. A horse and caisson transport was authorized for McCain's service at the U.S. Naval Academy. 
 
 Although many flags in Washington, including at the Capitol and around the Washington Monument, remained at half-staff in McCain's honor on Monday, the White House flag was not among them. 
 
 WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 30: Early morning sunlight hits the U.S. flag flying over the White House October 30, 2017 in Washington, DC. Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his ex-business partner Rick Gates turned themselves in to federal authorities Monday in relation to the special counsel's investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 
 
 Joe Davis, director of communications for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he heard the news at 7 a.m. that the flag had been returned to full staff. He contacted the White House at 8 a.m. 
 
 “We’re very, very happy that the flags have been lowered in honor of John McCain and will continue to be half-staff through his interment on Sunday,” Davis told POLITICO. 
 
 As of 4:20 p.m., however, flags were still flying at full staff over the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. 
 
 The White House was also lambasted for its decision to not immediately issue a proclamation following McCain's death Saturday. 
 
 The American Legion, a U.S. war veterans organization, prior to the proclamation had urged the Trump administration to "follow long-established protocol following the death of prominent government officials." 
 
 "Mr. President, just this year, you released presidential proclamations noting the deaths of Barbara Bush and Billy Graham. Senator John McCain was an American hero and cherished member of The American Legion," Denise Rohan, national commander of the American Legion, said in a statement. "On the behalf of The American Legion's two million wartime veterans, I strongly urge you to make an appropriate presidential proclamation noting Sen. McCain's death and legacy of service to our nation, and that our nation's flag be half-staffed through his internment." 
 
 The president shared his condolences for McCain's family in a Saturday evening tweet that did not mention McCain's legacy of military service or leadership in the Senate. His brief statement stood in stark contrast to the tributes to McCain that poured from nearly every corner of the U.S. political world and beyond, filling the front pages of newspapers across the country on Sunday. The New York Stock Exchange observed a moment of silence at 9:20 a.m. Monday in honor of McCain. 
 
 Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser to the president, on Monday also went a step further than her father while sharing her condolences to the late senator's family, calling McCain a "true hero." 
 
 "I want to extend my deepest sympathies to the family of Sen. John McCain, an American patriot who served our country with distinction for more than six decades," she said during her opening remarks at a meeting of the Organization of American States in Washington. "The nation is united in its grief, and the world mourns the loss of a true hero and a great statesman." 
 
 Presidential proclamations for the death of a prominent U.S. official typically call for the flag to be lowered until the date of interment. McCain's funeral is planned for Saturday. 
 
 One White House aide said that the flag fiasco may have been the result of ignorance and bureaucratic inertia. 
 
 Absent the issuance of a presidential proclamation, U.S. flag code dictates that the flag be lowered for a member of Congress “on the day of death and the following day” but no longer — a provision this person said senior presidential aides were unaware of. 
 
 As a result, the flag atop the White House was raised at midnight Monday following McCain’s death Saturday evening. 
 
 As the White House was inundated with criticism, aides scrambled to put together a proclamation that the president, who was welcoming Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and working to hash out a NAFTA fix with the Mexican government, didn’t get around to signing until late afternoon. 
 
 Trump has issued proclamations for others, including when the flag was flown at half-staff for four days after the death of former first lady Barbara Bush in April, and for eight days upon the death of Sen. John Glenn. 
 
 During the tenure of President Barack Obama, the White House marked the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia by ordering U.S. flags lowered to half-staff for seven days. 
 
 McCain's two opponents on the national campaign trail, former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, will deliver eulogies at a memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington on Saturday. McCain's family had asked that Trump stay away from the funeral. 
 
 Former White House legislative director Marc Short, in an appearance on CNN on Monday, said Trump was doing the right thing by remaining relatively quiet in the wake of McCain's death. 
 
 "If the president put out a flowery statement about John McCain's life, the media would criticize it and say its not consistent with the other things he said in the past, and become a story about the president," Short said. "The best thing the president can be doing right now is allow the family to celebrate his life." 
 
 Eliana Johnson and Lorraine Woellert contributed to this report.
– Flags are flying at half-staff in front of the White House and the Capitol today in honor of the victims of last week's Chattanooga shootings. President Obama ordered the move at the White House “as a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated," and the flag will remain that way through Saturday. Obama made the decision soon after John Boehner and Mitch McConnell announced they would lower flags at the Capitol, reports CNN. For a brief period today, flags at either end of Pennsylvania were out of sync on the matter. Obama, in fact, had been taking criticism from the right for not lowering the flags right away, notes the Hill.