To deal with immigration. But first the senior senator from arizona has endured insult after insult this week. At one point labelled songbird john, a reference to his time as a p. O. W. And while discussing votes for cia director gina haspel who mccain opposes, white house special assistant kelly sadler said, quote, it doesnt matter, hes dying anyway. Heres the white houses apology for those comments. Does the white house not think you need to condemn these remarks or comments again, im not going to validate a leak one way or the other out of an internal staff meeting. Are you saying she didnt say this . Again, im not going to validate a leak out of an internal staff meeting one way or the other. No, no, sorry, heres the white house apology. I think the remarks are awful, but lets look at this in context. That was said in a private meeting inside the white house. Thats not like you might Say Something really nasty about me off the air, it doesnt have
that much impact. You come on air a
quote, a visibly upset and furious press secretary sarah sanders told the group, quote, i am sure this conversation is going to leak, too. and that s just disgusting, according to a source in the room. cue, lindsey graham. are you satisfied with how the white house has responded? no, not really. it s pretty disgusting thing to say. if it was a joke, it was a terrible joke. i just wish somebody from the white house would tell the country that was inappropriate, that s not who we are, and the trump administration and john mccain can be criticized for any political decision he s ever made or any vote he s ever cast, but he s an american hero. and i think most americans would like to see the trump administration do better in situations like this. it doesn t hurt you at all to do the right thing and to be big. that s what they could have said publicly on thursday. word for word, and simply ended
that much impact. you come on air and say it officially that s a problem. this is a private meeting inside the white house, it was a joke, a badly considered joke, an awful joke she said fell flat. you have to have some freedom to speak in a private meeting candidly. we ve all said things in a small group we would never say publicly. that s not either. something is clearly wrong with our control room. hopefully this is actually the right thing, the white house apology. those comments, whether they were made or not made, some reports in there obviously, too, about the internal workings of that meeting that just shouldn t be made public. sadler reportedly did apologize to meghan mccain over the phone, but still hasn t followed through on a promise to do it in public. and jonathan swan at axios reports that huddled behind closed doors with the communications staff, sarah huckabee sanders said sadler s comments were wrong. quote, a visibly upset and furious press secretary sarah sand