MSNBC daytime host Nicolle Wallace suggested that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders should be choked after she refused to comment Friday on a report that an aide in the administration made a dismissive remark about Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., health.
On her show Friday, Wallace, who was an adviser for McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, asked NBC News’ White House reporter Kristen Welker, “How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck? Why can’t she just say if a staffer said that, we’re going to get to the bottom of it and she’ll be fired?”
Welker only responded that reporters at the day’s White House press briefing were “surprised” that Sanders didn’t offer more of an answer to questions about the alleged incident.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace compares Sarah Sanders to Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi information minister who once attacked a top U.S. diplomat for being “a known Jew.”
On if he had to interact with Sarah Sanders, NBC’s John Heilemann says: “I’d slit my throat.” pic.twitter.com/7YYN17vDPF
— Ryan Saavedra ?? (@RealSaavedra) May 12, 2018
Wallace later apologized on Twitter for her comments.
When I asked about whether the tension in the briefing room ever makes reporters want to wring the neck of the spokesman, I used poorly chosen words, & for that I’m sorry. I was trying to imagine the exasperation of getting spin & not answers re: John Mccain being “about to die”
— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) May 11, 2018
Reports on Thursday said that Kelly Sadler, a White House aide who crafts talking points for surrogates, made a dismissive comment about McCain’s opposition to President Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel.
“He’s dying anyway,” Sadler reportedly said at a White House meeting, though Sanders on Friday said she wouldn’t confirm or deny that it happened.
“I’m not going to validate a leak out of an internal staff meeting one way or another,” Sanders said.
McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer last year.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with Nicolle Wallace’s apology.
