Comments made by a White House communications aide mocking Sen. John McCain's battle with cancer this week were "awful," Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Saturday, but he is also concerned that the "badly considered joke" was leaked from a closed-door meeting.
He also told Fox News' Neil Cavuto that he does not think the aide, Kelly Sadler, should lose her job over her saying that "it doesn't matter; he's dying anyway," to communication staffers while they discussed the ailing senator's opposition to President Donald Trump's pick to head the CIA, Gina Haspel.
"They are awful, [but] that was said in a private meeting inside the White House," Mulvaney told Cavuto. "It's like you might say something nasty about me off the air and it doesn't have impact. When you come on-air, that's a problem. It was a private meeting. It was a joke. It was a badly considered joke."
Mulvaney said he was not at the meeting where Sadler made her comments, but at the same time, he added, "you have to have the freedom to speak in a private meeting," and he does not think Sadler should lose her job.
"We have all said things in private that we would never say publicly," Mulvaney said, noting that Sadler called McCain's daughter, Meghan, to apologize and he thinks that was appropriate.
"I am disappointed that someone would leak that out of a private meeting," said Mulvaney.
Mulvaney, though, said leaks happen all the time in the White House and elsewhere in Washington, including when he was in the House of Representatives.
"I remember talking on the phone to a colleague," the former South Carolina representative recalled. "I was standing at my laptop looking at a website. A reporter was reporting on my phone conversation as I was on the phone."
But what happened with Sadler's comments was different, as they came from a private meeting, and the leak was made with the intention of hurting her.
"They completely ignored the harm it would do to the family, which is doubly inconsiderate," said Mulvaney.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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