Sen. John McCain is great, White House spokespeople keep telling us. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to apologize for White House communications aide Kelly Sadler saying that McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel for CIA director “didn’t matter” because he’s “dying anyway.” Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is more upset about the “selfish” leak of the comment than about the comment itself, which she thinks is merely “inappropriate.”
National security adviser John Bolton may be “grateful forever” for McCain’s help when his nomination to be George W. Bush’s United Nations ambassador was held up, and he may “wish John McCain and his family nothing but the best,” but:
Pressed by the network’s Jake Tapper on whether he would apologize for Sadler’s remark, Bolton demurred. “I’ve said what I’m going to say,” he said.
The refusal to apologize is clearly coming from the top. Donald Trump does not have a problem with what Sadler said, and in fact is willing to prolong the story by having his staff refuse to apologize. At this point, an apology seems less likely than that the White House will start actively defending Sadler or that Trump himself will say something worse.