'He reads more than anybody I know': Sarah Sanders disputes 'absurd' claim Trump doesn't read briefings
Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders disputed the portrayal of President Donald Trump by the anonymous purported Trump official in the book "A Warning," calling the person a "total coward" and saying it doesn't sound like "somebody who spent real time with the president."
The book describes Trump as volatile and unfocused, but Sanders said, "you can't spend that kind of time with him and have that takeaway."
Sanders made the comments Sunday during an appearance on the Fox News program "The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton." She described the president as someone who is decisive and can quickly sort through large amounts of data. And she said the widely reported idea that the president needs his briefings to be simplified is "absurd."
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"I've watched him consume massive amounts of information, process it quickly and make decisions," she said. "He reads more than anybody I know. Every single foreign trip we actually would laugh about the fact he has boxes upon boxes, file boxes where he reads for hours. The rest of us want to take a break, we wanna sleep, the president works the entire time."
During her White House tenure, Sanders was vilified by critics who accused her of obfuscation and outright lying as Trump's spokeswoman.
In an interview with The New York Times published Sunday, Sanders said of all the criticism leveled at her, the accusation of dishonesty bothered her most.
"I was attacked for everything, not just my performance," she told the Times. "I was called a fat soccer mom, my kids were threatened, my life was threatened."
"I don’t like being called a liar," she added. "The other stuff bothered me far less."
As Sanders considers reentering politics, this time as a potential candidate for governor in her home state of Arkansas, she can expect the charge of mendacity to follow her. Among the many instances where her detractors accused her of dishonesty, the most glaring was outlined in the report from former special counsel Robert Mueller, which said she inaccurately claimed there were "countless members of the FBI" who told her they had lost confidence in former Director James Comey.
Sanders was unable to back up that claim when interviewed by Mueller's team and told them it had been a "slip of the tongue."
If her Times interview is any indication, Sanders is serious about a potential run to succeed Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whose term is up in 2023.
"There are two types of people who run for office," she said. "People that are called and people that just want to be a senator or governor. I feel like I’ve been called."
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump 'reads more than anybody I know,' Sarah Sanders says
