GOP Strategist Stuart Stevens Says Sarah Sanders is ‘Victim Shopping’ With Restaurant Flap
Veteran GOP operative Stuart Stevens gave his analysis of White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her feud with a restaurant in Virginia that dismissed her.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper referenced reporting that President Donald Trump encouraged Sanders to start off her briefing on Monday by addressing the Red Hen encounter, calling that “extraordinary.”
“It’s a diminishing of the office,” Stevens said.
“I think what happened to Sarah Sanders is unfortunate,” he continued. “But if you’re press secretary of the United States… you can talk about anything. You can talk about hunger, you can talk about the Iraq War, you can talk about the threat of a nuclear Iran. And to talk about what happened to you at a restaurant, I think it just diminishes it.”
“It’s sort of this victim shopping,” Stevens said. “Republicans used to be against this, used to be the party of personal responsibility. Used to say that to go out and look for trivial things to become victims of diminished those who were truly victims. I think we were right, and I think we are wrong now to get out and say ‘who can offend me the most.’ You end up like some sort of awful soccer team where everyone is just flopping around instead of playing the game.”
Stevens also argued that incivility in politics is “hard to stop” once it gets going, and that Trump “set a new low in incivility” when he ran for office, recalling when he accused Ted Cruz‘s father of murdering JFK and attacked the Texas senator’s wife.
“There has to be sort of a stoplight with civility, and I think political leaders have to be there to say that,” Stevens said.
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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