A year after comedian Michelle Wolf caught flak for mocking Sarah Huckabee Sanders during the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the White House press secretary is once again getting sharp criticism — this time from veteran news anchor Sam Donaldson.
The former co-anchor of ABC’s This Week accused Sanders of lying “about everything — not just one thing” during his appearance on Anderson Cooper 360 on Friday night.
Trump claims he's the most transparent president in history, but the White House has not held a "daily" press briefing in a record-breaking number of days
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 27, 2019
"Sarah Sanders simply lies about everything, taking a queue from her boss." - Former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson pic.twitter.com/bzbIrwUxnY
“I think she’s had an Oscar, a lifetime achievement Oscar for lying,” he said of Sanders. “And let’s face it, I don’t know her. I feel a little sorry for her because it’s the boss who does it. She takes the cue from him. Leadership begins at the top. And so it is all the bad things that happen in the administration.”
The former White House correspondent went on to compare Sanders to former President Richard Nixon’s Ron Ziegler’s lies about Watergate.
“Except for Ron Ziegler who lied for Richard Nixon, I’ve never seen anything like this with Sarah Sanders,” he told Cooper.
Sanders has yet to address those comments directly, though she did herself call out “liberal lies” while defending her boss, Donald Trump, in a tweet posted several hours after Donaldson’s interview.
Liberals said President Trump would lose-he won; said he colluded with Russia-he didn’t; said he’d ruin our economy-it’s booming; said he’d weaken America-our military has never been stronger. All the liberal lies can’t change the fact that the Trump presidency has been a success
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) April 27, 2019
Donaldson’s certainly not the first person in the public eye to come for Sanders. In February, Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre worked in a jab at the press secretary’s expense at the end of an episode, while last fall actress and talk show host Busy Philipps admitted flashing the White House employee a “mean look” when they crossed paths at Disney World.
Donaldson’s comments, meanwhile, have fetched mixed reactions, with many praising his “integrity.” One critic, however, blasted him as a “worthless lying liberal [who] misses the limelight.”
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