Every day in the news we find out a new sordid detail
about something that happened inside The White House.
Like when Ben Carson bought a $90,000 bean bag chair,
or when Mike Pence stood next to a painting of Dolley Madison
without his wife present.
And the only reason we know about these stories
is that the Trump White House has been plagued
by incessant leaks.
And judging by his tweets, the president has had enough.
President Trump on Twitter.
So if I understand this correctly,
Trump says there is no problem,
and the people responsible for that problem,
he will personally disembowel.
Is that what that means? Yeah?
You can't say there's no problem,
and also that you're solving the problem.
"Everything works perfectly down there!"
"Then why are you popping Viagra?"
"I like the taste. Mmm. Minty!"
(laughter)
Now, President Trump is particularly mad
about this latest leak, because, amazingly,
it's made The White House look even worse than usual.
A crude joke that turned out to be no laughing matter.
White aide Kelly Sadler set off a firestorm
with an insensitive remark about Senator John McCain.
WOMAN: Sadler was in a White House meeting last week
when John McCain's opposition
to CIA nominee Gina Haspel came up.
According to a White House source,
Sadler joked about the 81-year-old senator
who is battling brain cancer.
Colleagues leaked her comments to reporters.
Wow. Who cares what John McCain thinks?
"He's dying anyway."
Joking or not, you've got to admit
that's in pretty poor taste.
And this wasn't an isolated incident.
You have to understand, Trump and McCain
have had beef for years now.
During the campaign, McCain said that Trump
was firing up "the crazies."
So Trump fired back by dissing McCain
for having been a prisoner of war.
Then when Trump became president,
McCain killed his health care plan.
And then, even from the hospital,
McCain attacked Trump's CIA nominee
and said that Trump wasn't invited to his funeral.
Which, you have to admit, is the highest level of diss possible.
To un-invite someone to something
that you're technically not even really gonna be at.
I'm not gonna be there, but I don't want you there anyway.
And now, like, personally, I would want Trump at my funeral,
because I know that he'd hate being at an event
that wasn't about him, you know?
He'd be like, "I can be in a hole, too, folks.
"I was also dead. They said I was dead, folks.
"270 electoral college votes, but I got them, folks.
I got them. I came back."
So McCain and Trump hate each other,
which is why, when the story came out,
the White House cared less about McCain's feelings
and more about the fact that the story was leaked
in the first place.
So Sarah Huckabee Sanders held an emergency meeting
to stop everyone from leaking,
and guess how we know about this meeting?
A funny thing over the weekend,
there was this meeting on Friday.
Sarah Sanders, press secretary, has a meeting,
starts the meeting saying, "I know somebody's
going to leak this," then goes on to condemn people
for leaking that comment that press aide made
about John McCain, and within hours, it's leaked
by a group of people that included several leakers.
So now... the leakers are leaking leaks
about a meeting about what leaked.
-(laughter) -You know what this is like?
This is like in a relationship when you're having an argument
about how much you argue: "Why do we always have to argue!"
"We don't argue." "Yes, we do!"
"No, we don't!"
And part of me feels bad for the White House,
because if you can't even tell people to stop leaking
without them immediately leaking it, you're screwed.
Now, the White House may be focused
on their leaking problem, but the rest of Washington
only has one thing on its mind.
Why not just apologize so America doesn't think
that that is an acceptable way of speaking
inside this White House?
Why hasn't someone just said, "You know what, we're sorry"?
If it were me, I would apologize.
I just wish somebody from the White House
would tell the country that was inappropriate.
It has been five days now since White House aide
Kelly Sadler made that morbid and awful remark
about Senator John McCain's failing health,
and still the White House refuses to apologize.
Wow. "Day five and still no apology."
They make it sound like the White House
is holding the apology hostage. That's what it sounds...
"Day five. No sign of the apology yet."
It feels like if this goes on for long enough,
Quincy Jones is gonna have to make one of those tribute songs
to help get the apology out, you know?
Be like, ♪ Apology, we miss you ♪
♪ We wanna set you free ♪
Then be like, ♪ Apology, I need you now! ♪
♪ Apology! ♪
I love those songs.
-(applause, cheering) -But it's true.
It's true.
If the White House had just apologized,
this story would be dead,
and they wouldn't have to worry about it.
And they don't even have to mean it.
Like, they could just be like,
"Hey, we regret that this joke was made,
"and the aide has now been reassigned.
"Move over there. They've been reassigned.
There, it's done." But instead of apologizing,
they're digging in their heels.
I'm not gonna comment on an internal staff meeting.
Again, I'm not gonna validate a leak one way or the other,
out of an internal staff meeting.
You know, I understand what's happening here.
In Trump's world, if you apologize,
you're admitting that it happened.
And for Trump, that's a sign of weakness.
But here's the thing--
just because it wasn't meant to get out
doesn't mean you can expect everyone to act
like it didn't happen.
That's not how this works.
Like, imagine if someone tried this technique in court.
Be like, "Defendant, how do you plead?"
"I plead that y'all were not supposed to know nothin'
"about my drug dealing, so I'm not gonna validate that
with a response."
"Yeah, you're getting life."