John McCain has reportedly barred U.S. President Donald Trump from attending his funeral when he dies.

The Arizona Republican Senator loathed Mr Trump so much that he planned to distance him from beyond the grave, reports said.

The ailing Arizona Republican, who has brain cancer, is organising his funeral – and close associates have reportedly told the White House that Mr Trump would not be invited.

Instead, Vice President Mike Pence, who served with Mr McCain in Congress, would be asked to attend the service, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The funeral ceremony for the former Republican Presidential candidate would be held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

A stream of politicians, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, have been visiting Mr McCain at his Arizona ranch and a nearby hospital in recent weeks.

Mr Trump’s long-running feud with Mr McCain has roots in the early days of the 2016 presidential race.

The senator criticised Mr Trump for disparaging Mexican immigrants in the June 2015 speech in which the president declared his candidacy.

Three weeks later, Mr Trump called McCain “incompetent” and dismissed his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“He’s not a war hero. He’s not a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured,” Mr Trump told an Iowa crowd.

Mr McCain is seen as one of the most respected U.S. politicians, who enjoys a cross-party goodwill among politicians.

He fought in the U.S. military war in Vietnam and was a prisoner of war.

During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire.

While Mr McCain was on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese.

Taken prisoner after his plane was shot down, he suffered five and a half years of torture and confinement before his release in 1973.

(NAN)