“I don’t like being called a liar,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells @anniekarni in @nytimes.
Of course there was an easy way for her to avoid being called that when she was Trump’s press secretary. She could’ve tried not lying.https://t.co/BOx7z6jlto— Clyde Haberman (@ClydeHaberman) November 25, 2019
The New York Times this morning published one heckuva puff piece for Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ 2022 gubernatorial candidacy. Somewhere, Tim Griffin is fuming.
It is such a puff piece (and reminiscent of when a Key White House correspondent rose to Sanders’ defense when she was the butt of jokes at a correspondents’ dinner) that many couldn’t help wonder if it was payback for source services. Perheps not. Sanders has ever — and in this article — been loyal to Donald Trump.
Sanders says she feels “called” to run for statewide office, though not ready to declare candidacy just yet. A mission from God, I guess, just like the Blues Brothers.
The piece devotes a couple of paragraphs to her clashes with the press corps. But it finds an Arkansas Republican who says loves her for her honesty. It details her travails as press secretary — having Secret Service protection, being booted from a restaurant in Virginia. Then the money quote that brought wide derision on social media:
“I don’t like being called a liar,” she said. “The other stuff bothered me far less.”
The comment at the top happens to be from a former New York Times reporter. FWIW: His daughter, Maggie, still covers the White House.
PS: Andrew DeMillo of AP also has profiled Sanders and her image-building appearances before Republican crowds. He quotes a state legislator who notes she’ll need to start talking at some point about relevant state issues, noticeably absent from her speeches currently.
