Fake News? Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says She ‘Would Never’ Use Politico as a Source
Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders slammed Politico in her first press briefing with reporters Friday.
The smackdown came in response to a question from Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev, who asked if there was credence to a Politico story alleging that President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget will slash funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“Look, my first piece of advice would never be to use Politico for a source for your story,” Sanders quipped, before claiming that the opioid epidemic is a top priority for the president.
The Trump administration has long held the political website in contempt, and Politico was one of the outlets blocked from an off-camera press briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer in February. In a March interview with Breitbart, Spicer called Politico White House correspondent Tara Palmeri “an idiot with no real sources.”
Trump’s disdain for the outlet predates his presidency; since 2012 he has rage-tweeted about Politico countless times, calling it “third rate”, “a puppet for Obama”, “a laughing stock”, “a scam”, “failing”, “phony”, “dishonest”, “pure scum”, “the most dishonest of the media outlets”, “the dumbest and most slanted of the political sites”, and “losing”.
He has also tweeted a number of articles from the website that included favorable coverage of his campaign and presidency.
Watch above, via CNN.
UPDATE –– 3:11 pm ET: Health care reporter Dan Diamond, who wrote the Politico story on the cuts to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, responded to Sanders on Twitter:
We’ve updated our story on drug office to include the budget document that the White House implied didn’t exist. https://t.co/ftj8TE9DLQ
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) May 5, 2017
Now included in his story is a photo of the draft budget proposal obtained by Politico, which calls for cutting the budget of the drug control office by about 95%.
[image via screengrab]
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