Former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman branded Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., "a very hateful man" Tuesday and told Newsmax TV the White House aide who made a distasteful crack about McCain's mortality should not step down or be fired.
"I don't think she should resign," Klayman told Tuesday's "America Talks Live." "People make comments. You know, Sen. McCain has been viciously attacking President Trump and the White House and everybody around him.
"We are sorry that he's dying, but he's a very hateful man, and he resents the fact that Trump beat him in the election . . .
"So, if a person makes an off-hand comment it does not mean they should be fired. She did apologize privately. This is being blown up by the left because it's a way to get to the Trump White House and to the president himself."
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McCain, 81, is at his home in Arizona battling brain cancer and has not been able to return to Capitol Hill to work so far this calendar year.
Last week, White House staffer Kelly Sadler quipped during a private meeting it did not matter McCain was opposing Gina Haspel for CIA director because "he's dying anyway."
There have been numerous demands Sadler, who privately called McCain's daughter Meghan McCain to apologize, also make a public mea culpa.
But Klayman, founder of the government watchdog Freedom Watch, said whether Sadler fesses up in public "doesn't really matter at this point."
"And I would suggest that President Trump probably gave her the go-ahead not to apologize publically," Klayman told hosts Miranda Khan, John Cardillo, and Gina Loudon. "He has been attacked over and over again by McCain.
"They made a point in the McCain family of saying we're not inviting the president to the funeral, but we are inviting Barack Obama . . . Who is more opposite in what McCain believes in militarily and strategically than Obama?
"So, there have been some real slaps at the president, and I can understand why they don't want to apologize publically. I wouldn't publically apologize either for that. It was an off-handed remark, she did what she needed to do. She did it privately."
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