During Tuesday's Don Lemon show, the host began by explaining that Republican members of Congress showed their true colors when they proved they were unwilling to stand up to Trump during the meeting today.
"I think they'd love to demand that the president apologize for what happened, but they're not going to get anywhere," said New York Times writer Frank Bruni. "It's just fascinating because the White House, over the last four or five days, has never said that the remark about McCain was not made. And having no one apologize, not apologizing yourself -- that would make sense if you were denying it was made, but no one's denying it was made."
He explained that it's obvious the White House sees it as a sign of weakness and noted that this is just more of them thumbing their nose at tradition and the establishment.
The neo-conservative political commentator said that the Republican senators had an opportunity to not go along with it or say something, but instead they asked two "pathetic" questions and moved on.
"Whoever asked the question needs to say, 'Mr. President, you should or could you please explain why you haven't apologized or asked your chief of staff to apologize for what your chief of staff said about one of our colleagues?'" Kristol continued. He went on to claim that Trump may have demeaned the Office of the President with this incident, but "the Republican senators demean, in my opinion, the Republican Party by the way they do nothing. They just rollover for Trump. It's pathetic."
Bruni noted that Kristol might feel that way but Republicans have been doing the same thing for over a year.
"Well, they should stop," Kristol concluded.
"I think it's important that when outlandish things happen you shouldn't normalize it," Lemon cut in. "You shouldn't say it's OK. This is not OK."
Bruni said that is exactly what both he and Kristol are doing. "I think, at this point they are so beaten down, and they have shown themselves in a year and a half honestly to be cowards with this president," he said.
Lemon recalled the infamous "Access Hollywood" apology, that he then tried to take back by claiming it might not have been his voice on the recording. When Trump decided former President Barack Obama was actually born in the United States and the whole "birther" movement was a lie, he did it after talking about his amazing hotels for the majority of his press conference.
"He was inventing a whole scenario by which his apology was unnecessary because it wasn't him," Bruni observed.
"No 'I'm sorry for spreading lies and being a horrible human being to a sitting president,'" Lemon noted. "If you can be outraged and call people 'sons of b*tches' for because they take a knee because they think something is important in this country and should be addressed -- and then, saying you can't apologize or have someone apologize for saying that 'he's dying anyway' to someone who is a war hero and served his country to the fullest extent. That is hypocrisy at its fullest on display."
Watch the full segment below:
