CNN’s David Axelrod Slams Sarah Sanders’ Legacy as ‘Defending the Indefensible’, ‘Not Being Truthful’ With Americans

CNN political analyst David Axelrod slammed Sarah Sanders on Anderson Cooper 360, saying her legacy as White House press secretary will be one of “defending the indefensible, and not being truthful with the American people.”

Sanders announced on Thursday that she will be stepping down as the White House’s primary spokesperson at the end of June. She said she planned to return to her home state of Arkansas, where her father, Mike Huckabee, was once governor.

Her tenure as press secretary was controversial, to say the least. She took over after President Donald Trump’s first spokesperson, Sean Spicer, after he routinely pilloried for not telling the truth, from Inauguration Day onward. Sanders’ pugnacious, give-no-quarter rhetorical style in dealing with the White House press corps mirrored that of her boss and often ran counter to reality and facts. In addition, Sanders effectively killed off the daily White House press briefing—on the day she announced she was leaving, she had not held an official press conference in more than three months.

One of the minor revelations of the Mueller report involved Sanders admitting to Special Counsel investigators that she completely made up a claim that “countless” FBI agents had contacted her to complain about former FBI Director James Comey and praise Trump’s firing of him. Notably, when that testimony became public, she then attempted to lie about having lied.

“In this job, she was called upon to choose between her fidelity to Trump and her fidelity to the truth, and she chose Trump,” Axelrod observed. Or, as he more aptly put it: “If you are the spokesperson for a habitual liar, it’s like being fire marshall for a pyromaniac. It’s not going to end well for you.”

Watch video above, via CNN.