Sanders told colleagues Giuliani interview left her in untenable position: report
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told colleagues that the bombshell interview President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani gave this week to Fox News host Sean Hannity left her in an “untenable position,” The Washington Post reports.
Sanders acknowledged in a press briefing on Thursday that Giuliani’s Fox News interview was the first time she heard that Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for hush money payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.
She said six times during the briefing that she was not misleading the public, but simply articulating “the best information I had at the time.”
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Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, also made proclamations that three American prisoners would soon be released from North Korea.
Sanders was unable to confirm that development while standing at the podium in the briefing room.
The Post reports that Sanders sometimes finds herself out of the loop on certain issues and has frequently joked behind the scenes that she doesn’t know whom Trump will fire next, what his next tweet will say or when he might change his mind on something.
The issue came to a head in February when Sanders cursed and yelled at White House counsel Donald McGahn, two people familiar with the confrontation told the newspaper.
Sanders was reportedly frustrated with misleading statements about the domestic abuse scandal surrounding former staff secretary Rob Porter that was drowning the West Wing.
She threatened McGahn that she would stop speaking on behalf of the administration unless she was given more information about what happened with Porter, the Post reported.
The clash, which occurred in the hallway outside deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin’s office, was so loud that more than a dozen staffers heard it, the newspaper said.
Sanders declined to be interviewed by the newspaper for the story, though Trump’s first press secretary Sean Spicer praised her job performance.
“Sarah has done a fantastic job of keeping in line with understanding how to effectively communicate what the president’s thoughts are at any given time, recognizing that it is a very dynamic and fluid situation in many cases,” Spicer told the Post. “What she has done is, she has realized, you can’t get in trouble for what you don’t say.”
The next president of the White House Correspondents’ Association also complemented her handling of the job.
“Sarah has always been coolheaded and professional and always gives our arguments for greater transparency and openness a respectful hearing,” said Olivier Knox, the chief Washington correspondent for SiriusXM.
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