Don’t meet the press
Tuesday saw yet another record broken by the Trump White House: the longest run without an official news media briefing.
At some point, one cannot help but wonder: What is the job of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who holds the title of White House press secretary?
This presumably pleases her boss. Trump prefers to broadcast to the public from the safety of Twitter, where truth and accountability are not held at a premium. In January, he even directed Sanders (in a tweet) “not to bother” with briefings anymore. Is a White House press secretary unwilling to interact with the press to earn her taxpayer-funded salary?
In Sanders’ case, the growing lack of access is arguably less troubling than the lack of credibility—a problem highlighted in last Thursday’s release of the Mueller report.
The special counsel’s office detailed several instances in which, in her official capacity, Sanders flagrantly lied to the media and the American public.
After the firing of FBI director James Comey in May 2017, Sanders, then deputy press secretary, claimed on two occasions that she had heard from “countless” current and former agents that the “rank-and-file” had lost confidence in him. When later questioned by Mueller’s office, Sanders admitted that this was untrue—or, rather, that it had been a “slip of the tongue” made “in the heat of the moment.”
Equally false was Sanders’ claim that Trump did not dictate a misleading statement for his son Donald Jr. concerning the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. Trump’s lawyers told investigators that the president had in fact dictated the statement.
Beyond a willingness to jettison facts when convenient, Sanders has been true, if not to her role, at least to her boss’ priorities in her reflex when caught to shift into attack mode, railing about unjust persecution. Asked about her “heat of the moment” defense of the Comey untruth last week, Sanders said, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a robot like the Democrat Party that went out for two and a half years and stated time and time again that there was definitely Russian collusion between the president and his campaign.”
Such responses surely endear the press secretary to this president. While they don’t reflect well upon her, they testify first and foremost to how ill-suited Trump is to his own role.