White House counselor Kellyanne Conway stated on Monday that she expects to see a new staff shakeup amid the controversy over the leaked comments, made during an internal meeting last week, according to a report from CNN.
“I had several discussions with the president on this very topic today,” Conway said on Fox News.
When asked by the host of the show, Martha MacCallum, if she expects changes in the staff, Conway said “I do, actually. Yes, I do.”
Conway’s warning came only hours after President Donald Trump called out the White House leakers as “traitors and cowards,” and promised that he is going to hunt them down.
The White House has been under heavy criticism in recent days after The Hill first reported that communications staffer Kelly Sadler mocked Senator John McCain’s brain cancer diagnosis.
During an internal meeting, Sadler allegedly said that McCain’s opposition to Trump’s pick for CIA director, Gina Haspel, “doesn’t matter” because “he’s dying anyway.”
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle as well as former government officials have called for a public apology from Sadler and the White House. However, the White House has not offered one, and instead has focused on its argument that the issue is the leak in the first place.
Deputy press secretary Raj Shah said during Monday’s press briefing that the matter was handled “internally,” but he would not elaborate.
On Fox News, Conway also defended Trump’s stance against leakers. “Those who work at the White House should be loyal to the president and his agenda,” she stressed.
“It’s not so much leaking as using the media to shiv each other, and that was going on quite a bit at the beginning of this administration and it’s less so now,” Conway said.
“But I think the president is on solid ground here,” she added.
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