Senate Republicans did not use their Tuesday lunch with President Trump to bring up a comment from a White House staffer that Sen. John McCain’s vote no longer matters because he’s “dying anyway.”
While Republicans touched upon a number of issues with Trump during their meeting that lasted over an hour, including North Korea discussions and the 2018 midterm elections, McCain, who is in Arizona battling brain cancer, was not mentioned either by the president or Senate Republicans, according to multiple GOP senators. Several Senate Republicans have called on Kelly Sadler, the communications aide who dismissed McCain’s impact on Gina Haspel’s nomination to become the next CIA chief, to apologize.
“It just never came up,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. “The president talked most of the time. We had a couple of questions at the end. But it was mostly the economy and foreign policy.”
While Republicans have been quick to back the president on key issues since the beginning of 2018, the backlash to the McCain remark has been swift from the GOP. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., revealed Monday night that he visited McCain at his home in Sedona, Ariz., over the weekend and spoke glowingly about the Arizona Republican.
“The person who said that should apologize and should apologize publicly,” McConnell told reporters after the meeting with Trump.
On Tuesday, several Senate Republicans criticized the White House for their handling of the situation five days after the comments were initially made. Raj Shah, the White House principal deputy press secretary, told reporters Monday that the issue is being dealt with internally, which has not been received well by the GOP caucus.
[Senate Republicans call on White House to apologize to John McCain]
“Of course there should be an apology,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. “And I think more broadly, we need to be thinking less about kind of senseless comments and more about prayers for a great American, right? That’s what we should be focused on.”
“This story can end itself pretty quickly and we should be thinking about keeping John McCain in our prayers,” he said.
Heading into the lunch, there was chatter that someone could bring up the issue with the president. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., an outspoken critic of Trump and a friend of McCain, told reporters heading into the lunch that he had hoped someone would bring up the issue, but declined to say he would do so himself as he has confronted Trump at GOP caucus meetings in the past.
Flake said that while the president did not make the remarks himself, he could help put the issue to bed if he wants to.
“It wasn’t the president who made the statement, but certainly if he asked the person who did to apologize, she would,” Flake said. “I think that would be appropriate. I hope it happens.”
So far, the White House has deemed the leak from a meeting as a bigger deal than the comment itself. The president tweeted about the issue on Monday and Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, said there will likely be a response to the issue in the future. Nevertheless, Senate Republicans maintain they were not afraid to ask the president about the topic, noting they only got to ask two questions.
“We kind of ran out of time,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “I’m not afraid of the president. I like the president. He can’t eat me and he can’t kill me. I’m not afraid of anyone that can’t eat me or kill me.”
