MSNBC Host Attacks Sarah Sanders, Suggests Someone Should 'Wring Her Neck'
An MSNBC host called for violence against White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday because she wouldn’t give the Washington media corps a tidbit of gossip.
The fuss began because Sanders refused to give reporters what they wanted in response to questions about a White House aide who, during a private meeting, allegedly made a derogatory comment about Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
Sanders was asked about the comment, which was reportedly made by White House aide Kelly Sadler.
The alleged remark has prompted an uproar, which many people demanding Sadler be fired for saying that McCain’s opposition to CIA nominee Gina Haspel did not matter because McCain was dying. McCain’s wife even expressed her displeasure with what Sadler is accused of saying.
On Friday, during a news briefing that began with an account of the administration’s efforts to fight opioid abuse, Sanders was asked about the issue.
“I’m not going to comment on an internal staff meeting,” she said.
That comment raised the hackles of MSNBC daytime host Nicolle Wallace, who was an adviser on McCain’s ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign.
“How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck? Why can’t she just say, ‘If a staffer said that, we’re going to get to the bottom of it and she’ll be fired?'” Wallace said.
Wallace later tweeted that she regretted the words she used to describe her concerns.
“When I asked about whether the tension in the briefing room ever makes reporters want to wring the neck of the spokesman, I used poorly chosen words, & for that I’m sorry. I was trying to imagine the exasperation of getting spin & not answers re: John Mccain being ‘about to die,'” she tweeted.
NBC White House reporter Kristen Welker, to whom Wallace made the comment, said reporters were “surprised” that Sanders did not speak more about the incident.
“But, Nicolle, as you’ve been discussing, it does shine a light on the tone and culture within this White House, within Washington right now and within our politics more broadly I think, Nicolle,” Welker later said, according to NewsBusters.
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