During a face-to-face interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo this week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was called out repeatedly for lying about the President’s role in dictating a letter on behalf of Trump Junior, to which she never actually provided an answer for why she lied to the public. After several minutes of pressure, Huckabee Sanders snapped and insisted that she didn’t have a problem with her own credibility, and maybe CNN is just fixated on it. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Transcript:
On Wednesday CNN’s Chris Cuomo invited Sarah Huckabee Sanders on the program. He went to DC, they sat down face to face and Cuomo allowed Huckabee Sanders the opportunity to tell her side of the story about her lie that Donald Trump did not dictate or otherwise was not involved in that Donald Trump Jr. letter about the response to his Trump Tower meeting last summer.
It took roughly 30 seconds for this interview to kind of go off the rails. Take a look.
Chris Cuomo:
Sarah, it is good to see you.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
Good to see you.Chris Cuomo:
I respect you taking the opportunity.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
Thank you. Thanks for being in DC.Chris Cuomo:
Well I came for you. What do you think about this as a positive pivot? Let’s take a look at this situation and see if we can get to a place, mutual respect, both sides think credibility counts and we move forward. What do you say?Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
All right, we’ll give it a shot.Chris Cuomo:
All right. I get it. I get that that’s the answer. But you also get that’s it’s unsatisfying, right? That’s why we’re frozen.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
I don’t understand having to answer the same question over and over and over again.Chris Cuomo:
Well because you haven’t answered it.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
And expecting a different …Chris Cuomo:
In all due respect it’s because you didn’t answer it.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
No that’s not true. I’ve answered it, you just didn’t like the answer and there’s a big difference between me not answering it and you not liking the answer.Chris Cuomo:
There can be, fair point. There can be a difference however, I don’t know that there is here because this is about something you said. I could’ve said this then. When people asked you, “Hey, what Sekulow says, is it right?” Why didn’t you say then, it’s a matter for counsel?Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
Again, I’m not get into a back and forth with you. I’ve addressed it. The outside counsel has addressed it. They’ve answered this question over the last couple of days and I would refer you back to those comments.Chris Cuomo:
Let’s look at it a different way. You seem to be in a position where you feel that you are constrained to not be able to answer.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
We are purposefully walling ourselves off and allowing the outside counsel to do their job and we’re doing ours.Chris Cuomo:
But you did initially answer it, right?Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
I did. And again, I referred you.Chris Cuomo:
Do you regret that?Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
No, I don’t. But I’m starting to regret sitting here because I’m answering the same question I’ve answered a million times.Chris Cuomo:
I wanted to give you a lot of chances at it because I think it matters. I think it hurts your credibility. I think it hurts the dynamic. But I gave you the opportunities, you made of them what you wanted. All right? It’s not the only reason I brought you here.Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
I’m very comfortable with my credibility and the fact that I think by sitting here right now and taking questions now from you shows the type of person I am. Shows my effort to provide information and frankly to be in an environment that’s not exactly friendly. That’s not exactly one that I think a lot of people in my position would come and sit in and I think that speaks a lot to my credibility and if you want to focus on my credibility, I think that’s something that you should certainly look at.
See here’s the thing Sarah though. You do have a credibility problem. You do. You lied about this and as Chris Cuomo tried to tell you several times in that interview even though you didn’t want to listen to it, you never had to lie in the first place. If you didn’t know the answer you didn’t have to give an answer. You could’ve said, “I don’t know, maybe I’ll look into it.” Or, you could’ve given the response that you’re trying to give now like, “Oh that’s a question for legal, go ask them.”
Instead you made the choice just like you do every day, to tell a lie. That’s your choice. That is a credibility problem. In fact you don’t have any credibility whatsoever. And you’re the communications director, the press secretary. You run communications for the White House to the press. You’re the intermediary. You’re the go between. You’re the person who’s supposed to relay that information and we can’t trust you. The press can’t trust you.
Now I admire Chris Cuomo for what he attempted to do there which was to give you a platform to set the record straight. And like always, you failed to do it because there is something so wrong with you that you are incapable of actually telling the truth to anyone. It’s apparently the same affliction that Donald Trump himself suffers from.
