The whole world knows Trump's White House is a chaotic mess, but press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is pretending that's just how it works.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is defending the daily chaos and dysfunction generated by Trump himself as simply "how civics works."
Unlike his predecessors, the Trump team has often lurched from crisis to crisis, with almost all of it resting on Trump's unpredictable and erratic whims and tweets.
At Friday's press briefing, NPR reporter Ayesha Rascoe asked Sanders to address the issue.
"There seems to be a perception, that at times the president makes announcements and then the White House has to come up with policies to match what the president said," Rascoe noted.
She cited Trump's abrupt announcement of sending troops to the southern border, and the many unanswered questions of how much military will be deployed, what they will do there, and whether anybody in the government knew the announcement was coming.
"I think that's a perception of completely — people that don't understand I guess how civics works," Sanders said.
She then claimed that when Trump makes announcements, "He's carrying out the duties that he was elected to do and it's up to his staff to implement those policies that he announces."
The answer, as has been typical with Sanders, was nonresponsive and laced with rancor.
In the past, she dismissed those who called out the Trump team's disinterest in domestic abuse, lied about Trump's attempts to purge the FBI, attacked civil rights heroes who wouldn't back Trump, and said a reporter had "interrupted" her as he attempted to get a straight answer on gun violence.
Her default mode is always on the attack, refusing to acknowledge reality and the concerns expressed by millions.
Trump is erratic. The press knows it, other politicians know it, the markets know it, and average Americans know it.
But to acknowledge reality is seen by the White House as an admission of weakness. So instead, Sanders lashes out and tries to obscure the truth.
