Following up on White House chief of staff John Kelly’s disconcerting assertion Monday that a willingness to “compromise” could have averted the Civil War, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked Tuesday if she would simply “acknowledge” that his comments were “deeply offensive to some folks.”
“No,” Sanders said, without missing a beat. That was her opening salvo. “No,” she wouldn’t acknowledge that.
The full question delivered by NBC reporter Hallie Jackson was just as clear as Sander’s response was: “Will the White House at least acknowledge that the chief of staff's comments are deeply offensive to some folks and historically inaccurate?”
After flat-out rejecting that notion, Sanders suggested the question was part of the media’s “outrageous and absurd” plot to paint Donald Trump’s White House as racist. (Just FYI, Sarah, denying that Kelly’s comments might have been offensive to some people IS racist.)
“The media continues to [...] push that this is some sort of a racially charged and divided White House,” Sanders said (talking over Jackson, who unsuccessfully tried to interject, “What's the compromise on slavery?”). Sanders continued, “Frankly, the only people I see stoking political racism right now are the people in the groups that are running ads like the one you saw take place in Virginia earlier this week. That's the type of thing that I think really is a problem.”
So Trump framing Nazi white supremacists as “very fine people” and Kelly offering that there were “men and women of good faith on both sides” of the slavery debate isn’t the problem. The real problem is a Virginia ad noting that the incredibly incendiary campaign Republican Ed Gillespie is running is scaring children of color. That ad depicts kids of color dreaming about being chased by a Confederate flag-waving Gillespie supporter. Frankly—to borrow a word—Trump’s administration is doing much worse—arresting undocumented children with cerebral palsy for deportation. Can’t imagine why kids are having bad dreams.
Watch the exchange below and keep an eye on Jackson’s facial expressions: priceless.