Sarah Huckabee Sanders Was Asked if Trump Read Hillary's Book

Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Within the Trump White House, by Sarah Huckabee Sanders St. Martin's Press hide caption

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St. Martin's Printing

The photo on the book jacket of Sarah Huckabee Sanders smiling upwardly at President Trump as they walk forth the White House Rose Garden reveals a lot about the story inside.

For more than ii years, Sanders was a key part of Trump'south inner circle, reaching a level of trust and access few take in this unconventional administration.

"I didn't just dearest my job, I loved the president and well-nigh of the people I worked with," she writes.

Her new book, Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House, is not about settling scores like many books about the Trump White House. It's an unabashed homage to Trump and a feathering of her nest for a likely run for governor in Arkansas.

Her tenure was nothing but tumultuous — holding epic fights with the press, being defendant repeatedly of misleading the public and doing abroad with traditional daily printing briefings.

But readers won't get much of a taste of the inner workings of the Trump White House beyond the headlines.

Sanders writes a partisan tale focused primarily on her 23 months at the White House. She never directly criticizes the president and takes aim at his detractors, including Hillary Clinton and John Bolton, his old national security adviser, who she wrote was "drunk on power."

But she likewise shares tidbits about working in the White House and what, from her perspective, Trump is similar when the cameras are off.

She opens the volume recalling in item the president'southward secret Christmas Day flying to Iraq and being reduced to tears past a soldier who ripped a U.Due south. Army patch off his compatible to give to her.

She reveals her function during do sessions for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's public hearings. She played the role of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, during the then-chosen "murder boarding" session.

"With all due respect, Judge, yous retrieve you're the victim here?" Sanders said she asked him. "An innocent woman said yous sexually assaulted her. Explain to me why you're the victim?"

She shared how Trump adorned the back dining room off the Oval Office — where he does much of his work — with a UFC championship belt to accompany the famous paintings of erstwhile presidents that decorate the walls.

Not surprisingly, he closely watched her briefings and oftentimes showered her with compliments.

"I loved information technology. You lot're a f------ killer!" she writes about a particularly harsh exchange with reporters. "In the ultimate sign of his approval, the president told the valet to bring me a coke."

Though having a front row inside, Sanders does not dish much on the well-documented chaos that the administration is best known for. She notes the administration'southward problems with leaks just largely paints a sanitized moving picture of a family unit temper with various struggles only shared goals.

She faithfully recounts many of the more than well-known experiences, including how injure she felt when she and her family unit were kicked out of a restaurant in the Virginia mountains.

She documents perhaps the most chaotic 10 days of the administration when Anthony Scaramucci took over as White Firm communications manager, proceeded to burn members of her squad and gave an expletive-filled magazine interview earlier existence fired by so-newly hired chief of staff Gen. John Kelly.

She explains how Kelly struggled with the president's family and their role in the assistants. "Having grown upwards in a political family, I warned Kelly that in a fight betwixt family unit and staff, family always wins," Sanders writes.

She expresses piffling remorse well-nigh her self-described "slip of the tongue" when she admitted to special counsel Robert Mueller'southward investigators that she made false statements to reporters regarding the firing of FBI Director James Comey. Instead, she accused the FBI of trying to "vilify" her "equally payback for vigorously defending the president."

She goes deeper when describing her pain sitting through the 2022 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner when comedian Michelle Wolf repeatedly mocked her appearance and questioned her integrity.

"I debated walking out or perhaps even throwing my wineglass at her," she writes of the night. "Simply ultimately I stayed in my seat and held my head high."

Information technology was those experiences that fabricated her lean into her religion to assist her, Sanders writes: "Being the White Business firm printing secretary for President Trump was a tough job. In the darkest moments I questioned how much more than our family could endure and at what cost."

Whether readers relish this book is likely to depend on their views of Trump. She emphatically calls for Trump'southward reelection and sets up her ain likely campaign to run for governor of Arkansas as a Trump surrogate.

She never crosses the president. One of the only times she acknowledges any kind of mistake was during Trump's highly criticized summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

"It was a missed opportunity to send an unmistakably clear message to Russia and other strange adversaries not to interfere in our ballot," she writes.

Information technology was barely an acknowledgment because the uproar Trump created when he failed to publicly challenge Putin'southward denial of interfering in the 2022 ballot. At the time, Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, chosen it "one of the virtually disgraceful performances by an American president in memory."

Coming on the heels of the Republican National Convention, the publication of Sanders' book coincidentally appears to endeavour to reinforce Republican efforts to humanize a president known more for his bravado than compassion.

Throughout the book, she shares anecdotes of Trump talking affectionately with the get-go lady, his love for bagpipes and his "laugh-out-loud sense of humor." She writes Trump almost admitted crying after hearing Kavanaugh talk well-nigh his 10-year-former daughter during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

"You know I'grand not a crier," Sanders says Trump told her when asked whether he cried. "But I'm not going to answer that."

She writes in detail of Trump's historic coming together with North Korean leader Kim Jong United nations and finishes the chapter with Trump and Kelly laughing that Kim was hitting on her.

She puts particular accent on Trump'southward human relationship with women, which polls suggest is a major Trump reelection weakness: "Every bit a adult female and working mom, President Trump not only empowered me – he defended me and reaffirmed me when the feminists and liberals were violent me downwardly with cruel and dehumanizing personal attacks."

Sander's potential bid for Arkansas governor hasn't been a underground. When Trump appear Sanders was leaving, he publicly expressed his hope that she run for governor.

Her book certainly has the feel of a entrada book for herself. She gives insight nearly herself, her faith and upbringing, including earlier life in the Arkansas governor'southward mansion when her father was governor. "The Governor'south Mansion would later exist the location for our senior homecoming dinner," she writes.

She opens up about her human relationship with her husband, Bryan, their little fights when building furniture and the challenges of raising kids as a working mom. And she reflects on her ain postpartum challenges, "crying over the smallest things" and feeling like she wasn't connecting at first with her newborn girl, Scarlett. "I knew I was supposed to be joyful virtually being a mom, but I felt so isolated," she writes.

She also highlights Trump's aid in a potential run, explaining that his referring her to as "Madam Governor" in front of senators, governors White House staff "and even Prince Charles on the UK state visit" helped raised her profile.

Trump urged her to go out early, she says. But she made clear what her first priorities were: "The election isn't for a few more than years, sir," she told him. "Let'south get you reelected first."

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/908842217/in-memoir-sarah-huckabee-sanders-shows-shes-all-in-with-trump

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