Sarah Huckabee Sanders Leads Off-Camera White House Briefing

The White House will have another off-camera press briefing Thursday, according to a report from CNN Wednesday night. Stepping in for Sean Spicer will be Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She first stepped in for Spicer in May while he was away on Navy Reserve duty.

Her name sounds like a mash-up of politicians, but she has no relation to Vermont’s Independent Senator Bernie Sanders. She is, however, the daughter of former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

READ: Where Is Sean Spicer? White House Briefing Held Off-Camera Monday

She has stepped into the spotlight as she intermittently takes over Spicer to give press briefings. Spicer has been filling both the press secretary role and the communications director role since Mike Dubke resigned from that role last month. Spicer is actively looking for a replacement press secretary, without much luck.

A report Tuesday detailed that the White House is having a hard time filling the role.

“After weeks of fitful efforts to sell a job that for decades people have plotted to get, no one has jumped at the chance to become President Trump’s new press secretary, leaving the president — at least for now — with his beleaguered front man, Sean Spicer,” the New York Times reported.

 Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Sarah Huckabee Sanders

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds a news briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2017. Photo: Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS

Huckabee Sanders was asked if she would be interested in taking take the role Wednesday on the Fox show “Fox and Friends.”

“It’s the president’s decision to make,” she said.

She also responded to a question asking if she would take the role if she was offered it.

“I don’t think a lot of people turn the president down on anything he asks them to do and that’s one of the reasons he’s going to be so successful and the reason that he’s pushing through and getting a lot of things done even in these first few months in office,” she said.

Whether Huckabee Sanders lands in the role or not, there might not be many briefings for the person to hold. In June the briefings have been shorter than in the past few months. There have been fewer, and they are becoming increasingly off-camera. President Donald Trump has mused on Twitter about doing away with them all together.

Huckabee Sanders has been around politics her whole life, helping with her dad’s campaigns since she was nine.

“He didn’t really have much of a staff, so our family has always been very engaged and very supportive of my dad,” she told The Hill in 2010. “I was stuffing envelopes, I was knocking on doors, I was putting up yard signs,” Huckabee says. “I’m absolutely my dad’s biggest fan, and anything he wanted to do, I wanted to be a part of.”

READ: Who Will Replace Sean Spicer? A Closer Look At Laura Ingraham

She went on to work for her dad’s presidential campaign and other Republican campaigns. She managed Arkansas Senator John Boozman’s 2010 campaign and advised on Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton’s campaign. She became a senior advisor to President Donald Trump’s campaign after her dad left the race.

Huckabee Sanders married Bryan Chatfield Sanders in 2010 and they have three children.

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