Still no public apology from White House on McCain

WASHINGTON — Advisers to President Donald Trump paid tribute Sunday to the long service of Sen. John McCain but stopped short of apologizing to him for a cruel remark by a White House communications aide about the Arizona Republican’s battle with brain cancer.

In a statement, and in some public appearances, Trump advisers praised McCain’s service as a senator and naval aviator held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. But they declined to comment on the remarks of Kelly Sadler, who told other communications aides at a closed-door staff meeting that McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel as CIA director did not matter because “he’s dying anyway.”

In an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, said he remained grateful for McCain’s past support, particul arly during Bolton’s 2005 confirmation battle to be ambassador to the United Nations, a post for which Senate Democrats blocked him before President George W. Bush gave him an interim appointment.

McCain worked with other senators to try to win McCain enough votes for Bolton to overcome a filibuster, at a time when Bolton’s political standing was not strong because of the unpopular direction of the Iraq War. He was a fierce advocate of the war.

“He did it because he thought I was being treated unfairly. I’ll never forget it, I’ll be grateful forever, and I wish John McCain and his family nothing but the best,” Bolton said on CNN.

Pressed on whether he would apologize for Sadler’s remark, Bolton demurred. “I’ve said what I’m going to say,” he said.

Later Sunday, Meghan McCain, the senator’s daughter, told ABC News that Sadler had called her to apologize but had still not acquiesced to the younger McCain’s request for a public apology.

“I asked her to publicly apologize and she said she would. I have not spoken to her since and I assume that it will never come,” Meghan McCain told ABC.

The story of Sadler’s remarks broke Thursday, prompting a White House statement that praised “Senator McCain’s service to our nation.”

By Friday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not rebuke Sadler’s remark.

That stance has angered allies of McCain who view the senator as a war hero.