White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders kicked off Thursday's briefing with a pre-taped victory lap from Donald Trump, who was obviously slurping down Diet Cokes and fries just down the hall but too cowardly to face the press in person.
After Trump told White House reporters how great he was, Sanders pushed through the looking glass into upside-down land where she expressed exasperation about the new Michael Wolff book that has captivated Washington and trashed it as "tabloid gossip."
In words one never thought would pass Sanders's lips, the White House’s chief falsehood pusher said she was concerned about the book's "falsehoods."
"Regardless of whether or not there's a lawsuit,” Sanders said of Trump’s threat to sue the book’s publisher, “they should be concerned about peddling fake stories. They should be concerned about putting out information that's not true."
Truth ... suddenly a White House preoccupation. Huh. Although Trump sounded upbeat Thursday morning following Bannon’s softer pronouncements Wednesday night after receiving a “cease and desist” order from Trump’s lawyers, Sanders placed firing Bannon from Breitbart News front and center on the table.
Apparently shelving her aversion to lies, Sanders also continued her gaslighting campaign casting Bannon as a nobody who had zero influence over Trump.
Of course, one of the biggest problems for the White House is that Wolff’s book is full of excerpts that call into question Trump’s mental fitness on the very same week that he threatened North Korea with his big, bad “nuclear button.” But Sanders dismissed such concerns as “disgraceful and laughable.”
The book is “complete fantasy and just full of tabloid gossip,” she said.
It’s pretty rich that the guy who made his name by feeding it into the headlines of Page Six is suddenly disparaging the very tabloids that gave him life. In truth, Trump should feel right at home.