Bernie Sanders says its 'beyond my comprehension' White House will not apologise for John McCain cancer 'joke'

'I just don’t know what goes on in that White House'

Bernie Sanders has said it is beyond his “comprehension” why the White House has not officially apologised to John McCain over a “joke” about the aggressive brain cancer for which he is receiving treatment.

Mr McCain, 81, who has glioblastoma, recently angered the White House when he issued a statement saying he would not support Donald Trump’s pick to head the CIA, Gina Haspel. It subsequently emerged a White House aide had dismissed Mr McCain’s views, telling colleagues: “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway.”

The aide, Kelly Sadler, telephoned one of Mr McCain’s daughters to apologise for her comments, and reports suggest she had been admonished by her bosses. However, the White House has refused to issue a formal apology for her remarks, which were leaked to the media.

Asked about the comment on Friday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she would not comment on a closed-door meeting where the remark was made. “I’m not going to validate a leak one way or the other out of an internal staff meeting,” she told reporters.

Asked why she would not apologise to Mr McCain, she said: “I’m not going to get into a back and forth because, you know, people want to create issues of leaked staff meetings.”

Mr Sanders, 76, the independent senator from Vermont who challenged Hillary Clinton surprisingly hard for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said he could not understand or explain the White House’s behaviour.

“It is one thing in the White House for somebody to say something crude and stupid and disrespectful about an American hero, it is another thing for them not to apologise,” Mr Sanders told CNN.

“It is beyond my comprehension. I just don’t know what goes on in that White House mentality for there not being an apology for that terrible remark.”

Mr Sanders said that while he and Mr McCain had “strong differences of opinion,” he liked the Arizona Republican. “I personally like John very, very much. He is very well respected in the Senate and in the country.”

CNN said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney had on Saturday said Ms Sadler’s comments were a “joke” and that “it was a badly considered joke, an awful joke that she said fell flat”.

Her comments were denounced by several prominent Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

On Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and the person considered Mr McCain’s closest friends in the senate, added his condemnation, saying the White House should apologise.

“It’s a pretty disgusting thing to say,” said Mr Graham. “If it was a joke, it was a terrible joke. I just wish somebody from the White House would tell the country that was inappropriate, that’s not who we are in the Trump administration.”

This was not the first time that Mr McCain has been on the receiving ends of harsh words from either the Trump administration, or the president.

During his campaign for the White House, Mr Trump, who received five draft deferrals for Vietnam, some of which were for purportedly having bone spurs, made fun of Mr McCain’s status as a US war hero.

“He’s not a war hero,” Mr Trump said in 2015. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”