Matt Rourke/AP
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John McCain.
- Former Vice President Joe Biden said the Trump administration had "hit rock bottom" after it was reported White House aide Kelly Sadler mocked Sen. John McCain.
- During a discussion at the White House on Thursday on McCain's opposition to Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, Sadler reportedly said, "He's dying anyway," so his opinion "doesn't matter."
- Sadler's reported remarks add to the Trump administration's troubled history with McCain.
Former Vice President Joe Biden ripped into President Donald Trump's administration on Friday and said it "hit rock bottom" after reports that White House aide Kelly Sadler mocked Sen. John McCain, who has an aggressive form of brain cancer.
"People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration," Biden said in a statement. "It happened yesterday."
Sadler's reported remarks came during a discussion at the White House on Thursday on McCain's opposition to Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel. Sadler reportedly said of McCain, "He's dying anyway," so his opinion "doesn't matter." McCain spoke out against Haspel after her confirmation hearing earlier this week, saying her responses on her involvement in the George W. Bush-era "enhanced interrogation" program left him concerned.
In his statement on Friday, Biden said McCain is a "general hero" and that he deserves "so much better."
"Given this White House's trail of disrespect toward John and others, this staffer is not the exception to the rule; she is the epitome of it," Biden said.
McCain has become widely respected across the political spectrum for not only his long political career, but also his military record. The Arizona senator spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, where he was famously tortured after refusing an opportunity to be released early. McCain's has said his defiance of his captors was motivated by a loyalty to his fellow American prisoners of war.
Sadler's reported remarks add to the Trump administration's troubled history with McCain.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was broadly criticized after he mocked McCain's military status. At the time, Trump said McCain was not a "war hero."
"He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured," Trump said.
The White House has not denied Sadler made the remarks. She reportedly called Meghan McCain, the senator's daughter, to apologize on Thursday evening.
On Friday, Meghan, who co-hosts "The View," asked how Sadler still had a job.
"I don't understand what kind of environment you're working in when that would be acceptable and then you can come to work the next day and still have a job," she said on Friday's show.