White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders decided to earn some of her salary Monday by giving a press briefing, which is a rare occurrence lately. After declaring that her boss was going to go to Pittsburgh whether a mourning Pittsburgh wanted him or not, the rest of the briefing was an exercise in overwrought defensiveness and declaring of Trump's victimhood.
Most telling was an exchange with CNN's Jim Acosta, repeatedly pressing on Trump's rhetoric against the media. "Can you state for the record which [news] outlets are the enemy of the people," Acosta asked. "I'm not going to walk through a list. I believe those individuals know who they are," she said. "Would that include my outlet, which received a bomb last week?" he continued. It's not a "full outlet" Trump's talking about, she responded. "At times I think there's individuals that the president would be referencing." Subtle. "Shouldn't you have the guts, Sarah," Acosta asked, "to state which outlets, which journalists are the enemy of the people?" She didn't. Just for the record:
Pressed on those package bombs, Sanders was asked if Trump would tone it down and stop encouraging "lock her up" chants at his rallies. "Look, the president will continue to draw contrasts," she said. He's just drawing contrasts. The defensiveness got more and more extreme as the briefing went on. What does Trump mean when he says he might "tone up" his rhetoric, she was asked. "He's found moments to bring our country together and focus on things that all of us can support and all of us can condemn," she lamely countered. So why does he keep attacking the press? "Well, stop criticizing him then," she answered.
Pressed by NBC's Hallie Jackson on his attacks on the media and attacks on Democrats, Sanders answered "the president's going to defend himself and he's going to fight back."
"At what point does a national tragedy take precedence over the president needing to punch back? If not now, when?" Jackson pressed. Sanders refused to respond, talking about how Trump has "risen to that occasion and worked to bring our country together" after all the "horrible, horrible tragedies" the country has experienced. Jackson pressed on.
"Is he incapable of 'toning it down,' toning down the rhetoric?" The very first thing the president did, Sanders answered, was to condemn the acts, and "the very first thing the media did was to blame the president!" Then she was off on a rant attacking the media. "You guys have a huge responsibility to play in the divisive nature of this country when 90 percent of the coverage of everything this president does is negative despite the fact that country is doing extremely well." She went off in that vein for a while longer, including the alternative fact that Trump won with the "overwhelming majority" of voters.
In other words, no, he's not going to change a damn thing, no matter how many people are threatened or killed by white supremacists.