because he s going to die anyway. you ve served in the senate with mccain for more than a decade. it was a meaningful moment last summer when he returned to the senate. you gave him a hug on the senate floor. this is right after he had returned from arizona, where he was being treated for brain cancer. what is your response to the comment from kelly sadler, the white house official, who joked that mccain was dying anyway, so his vote doesn t matter? what was your reaction, and what do you think about the white house not apologizing? well, let me just say this. i have known john mccain for many years, and obviously he and i have strong differences of opinion, although we did work together on a major veterans bill. and i personally like john very, very much. he is very well-respected in the senate, and in the countr. and jake, it is beyond my comprehension. it is one thing in the white house for somebody to say something crude and stupid and disrespectful of an american hero. it is ano
source close to the ongoing deliberations within the white house press shop said one of the reasons why the white house isn t taking steps to punish sadler or make her make any sort of public statement about any of this is that the president, as we know, has said far worse about john mccain. so it would set sort of a bad precedent internally in that regard. so all of that said, we re sort of seeing in realtime what the ongoing degradation of our political discourse looks like, alex. okay, jeff bennett from the white house. thank you, jeff. joining me now, jill colvin, white house reporter for the associated press, and erin mcpike, senior adviser. ladies, good sunday to you both. jill, why is the white house refusing to apologize, even as republicans are continuing with their criticism for this lack of a response? yeah, it s quite incredible to watch how this has unfolded and the fact that we re still talking about this at this point on a sunday, that they re still having to respond
the domestic controversies engulfing his administration, still no apology though from the president or the white house for staffer kelly sadler s offensive joan about john mccain s cancer. referring to his opposition to see gina has pel, it doesn t matter, quote, he s dying anyway. lindsey graham criticizing the white house s response to sadler s comment. it s a pretty disgusting thing to say. if it was a joke, it was a terrible joke. he wish somebody from the white house would tell the country that was inappropriate, that s not who we are. and that 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. another issue plaguing the president this week is the revelation that his long time lawyer michael cohen took large
it s incredibly difficult to scold a staffer for saying something when you look at the president s past comments that aren t nearly as harsh, saying he preferred people who hadn t been captured early on. and that was a message from the president that really shocked republicans at the time. some people thought that was kind of the end of his campaign. obviously that didn t happen. yeah. what do you think the calculation is, erin, from your vantage point? why this approach by the white house? is the president pulling the strings on this potentially? well, i would say, alex that, the president clearly does not like to apologize for just about anything, and i think the white house press shop takes that tact too, thinking that by apologizing, they re showing some form of weakness. i would say from hogan gidley and others saying they weren t in the meeting and didn t know if it was said, that is bologna. we know kelly sadler has called meghan mccain to apologize, so she obviously said it
talk. i don t know what was said or done. i ll say this, john mccain came to my defense in 2005 when my nomination to the u.n. ambassador was under criticism because he thought i was being treated unfairly. i ll be grateful forever and i wish john mccain and his family nothing but the best. megan mccain said the thing that surprises me most, i don t know what kind of environment kelly sadler is working in where that s acceptable sean she could still have the job. i m giving you my view. doesn t the white house have an obligation to apologize? i said what i m going to say on the subject. matt? if you were john bolton how would you answer that question? it shows unity in the white house. i mean, in not fairness the wrong word but in the sense of proportionality let s be real about all of this. this is a terrible thing to say to mccain and family and people who serve like that. we also have the same white