WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on a crass remark by a White House staffer on Sen. John McCain (all times local):
7:20 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell steered clear of a White House aide’s derisive comment toward Sen. John MCain but praised the ailing Republican after visiting with him over the weekend in Arizona.
In a Senate speech Monday, McConnell said, “I told him we miss him.”
He says, “I was confident I was speaking for everybody in the Senate in conveying our deepest respects for him and all he’s done for the country in his extraordinary life.”
McCain remains outspoken on political and policy debates while battling brain cancer. McConnell says the beloved, if not “smart-alecky,” colleague had plenty to say about work.
During a White House staff meeting last week, communications aide Kelly Sadler dismissed McCain’s opposition to President Donald Trump’s CIA nominee by saying of McCain: “He’s dying anyway.”
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5:15 p.m.
President Donald Trump is calling West Wing leakers “traitors and cowards” as a dustup over an aide’s crass remark about Arizona Sen. John McCain extends into a fifth day.
In a Monday afternoon tweet, Trump says the “leaks coming out of the White House are a massive over exaggeration put out by the Fake News Media in order to make us look as bad as possible.”
He adds of the leakers: “We will find out who they are!”
During a meeting last week, Trump communications aide Kelly Sadler dismissed McCain’s opposition to the president’s CIA nominee by saying of McCain: “he’s dying anyway.” The 81-year-old Republican was diagnosed in July with brain cancer.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said Monday that Sadler had been “dealt with internally,” but he wouldn’t say how.
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2:50 p.m.
The White House says the aide who dismissed Sen. John McCain’s opposition on President Donald Trump’s CIA nominee by saying “he’s dying anyway” has been “dealt with internally.”
That’s according to spokesman Raj Shah, who says White House communications aide Kelly Sadler still remains in her position following her comment during a closed-door meeting last week.
The 81-year-old McCain is battling brain cancer.
Sadler called the Arizona Republican’s daughter Meghan McCain, a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” to apologize but hasn’t apologized publicly.
Shah led the meeting in which Sadler made the comment. He says he won’t discuss how the situation was “addressed internally” because then it would no longer be internal.
White House officials condemned the leak of the private conversation and have expressed their support for Sadler.
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