A White House official dismissed a view expressed by Sen. John McCain about President Donald Trump\u2019s CIA nominee, saying Thursday at a staff meeting that \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter\u201d because \u201che\u2019s dying anyway,\u201d two people in the room told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Kelly Sadler was discussing McCain\u2019s opposition to Trump\u2019s pick for CIA director, Gina Haspel, when she made the comment, according to the two people, who described feeling shocked and stunned by the remark. They spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door communications staff meeting.<\/p>\n
The White House did not dispute the remark. In a statement, they said, \u201cWe respect Senator McCain\u2019s service to our nation and he and his family are in our prayers during this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hill newspaper first reported the comment.<\/p>\n
The 81-year-old Arizona Republican, who has spent three decades in the Senate, was diagnosed in July with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He left Washington in December and underwent surgery last month for an infection.<\/p>\n
Sadler is a special assistant to the president. She did not respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
McCain\u2019s wife, Cindy, responded with a tweet tagged to Sadler, \u201cMay I remind you my husband has a family, 7 children and 5 grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. McCain, a Navy pilot who was beaten in captivity during the Vietnam War, has urged his fellow senators to reject Haspel. He said Wednesday that he believes she\u2019s a patriot who loves the country but \u201cher refusal to acknowledge torture\u2019s immorality is disqualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haspel faced grilling Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee about her role overseeing some CIA operations after the Sept. 11 attacks. She told senators that she doesn\u2019t believe torture works as an interrogation technique.<\/p>\n
As for the president, he and McCain have had a troubled relationship.<\/p>\n
As a GOP presidential candidate in 2015, Trump said McCain was \u201cnot a war hero\u201d because he was captured in Vietnam, adding, \u201cI like people who weren\u2019t captured.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A White House official dismissed a view expressed by Sen. John McCain about President Donald Trump\u2019s CIA nominee, saying Thursday at a staff meeting that \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter\u201d because \u201che\u2019s dying anyway,\u201d two people in the room told The Associated Press. Kelly Sadler was discussing McCain\u2019s opposition to Trump\u2019s pick for CIA director, Gina Haspel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30776,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30774\/revisions\/30776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}