April Ryan accuses Sarah Huckabee Sanders of ‘singling her out’

White House reporter April Ryan is accusing press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders of singling her out during the daily presidential press briefings.

“Why is it I’m asking similar types of questions like all the rest of the room but she’s coming at me that way?” Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, asked in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Friday. “Why? What did I do differently than anyone?”

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The questions from Ryan come one day after she told CNN’s Don Lemon that she felt Sanders was attempting to start “a physical fight” at Thursday’s press briefing after Sanders stated the reporter doesn’t know her well enough to assume what she may be feeling at a particular time.

“You were blindsided,” Ryan said to Sanders regarding her claim of not knowing in advance about an admission made by Rudy Giuliani during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday night that President Trump reimbursed his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence over an alleged affair with the president.

“You said yourself you were blindsided,” Ryan reiterated.

“I actually didn’t use that term,” Sanders replied.

“Well, I said it, but you were blindsided, from what you said,” said Ryan.

“Well, with all due respect, you actually don’t know much about me in terms of what I feel and what I don’t,” said Sanders, who then called on another reporter. 

Later Thursday, Ryan, is also a CNN contributor, accused Sanders of using language that leads to physical altercations. 

“For Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the presidential spokesperson, the mouthpiece for the President of the United States, to say, ‘You don’t know me,’ in certain quarters in this nation that starts a physical fight,” Ryan said to Lemon. “I was very shocked. It was street. I will even go beyond that, it was gutter.”

Ryan and Sanders spar regularly in the daily press briefing, including last month following an FBI raid on Cohen’s office, which prompted Ryan to ask if the president was considering resigning. 

“With all of this turmoil, particularly last week, has the president at any time thought about stepping down before or now?” asked Ryan. 

“No, and I think that’s an absolutely ridiculous question,” Sanders replied. 

“It’s not a ridiculous question,” Ryan said as Sanders moved on. 

The Hill has reached out to Sanders for comment.