Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who on Wednesday night lashed out at CBS News for reporting that she is considering quitting her post as White House press secretary after only six months, continued her aggressively defensive posture on Thursday. After opening Thursday’s press briefing by claiming that the newly released Inspector General’s report on the DOJ’s handling of the Clinton email investigation "reaffirmed the president’s suspicions about Comey’s conduct and about the political bias of some members of the FBI” — ignoring inconveniently damming parts of the report — Sanders then added a smile to wish the president a happy birthday, quipping, he doesn’t look “a day over 35!”
She then got serious, snapping at reporters who questioned Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ biblical support for the Trump administration's policy of separating asylum seekers from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I’m not aware of the attorney general’s comment or what he would be referencing. I can say that it is very biblical to enforce the law. That is repeated many times throughout the Bible,” Sanders replied after CNN’s Jim Acosta asked, "Where in the Bible does it say that it's OK to take children away from their parents?"
Sessions had pointed “to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” while speaking at a gathering of church leaders in Fort Wayne, Ind., on Thursday.
“On these children that are being separated from their families at the border,” Acosta pressed Sanders later that afternoon, “The attorney general said somehow there’s a justification for this in the Bible. Where does it say in the Bible that it’s moral to take children away from their mothers?”
“Because it’s the law. That’s what the law states,” Sanders replied.
Acosta continued to press. “How is it a moral policy to take children away from their parents,” he asked. “Can you imagine the horror that these children must be going through when they’re coming across the border? Why is the government doing this?"
Sanders then snapped back: "I know it’s hard for you to understand even short sentences, I guess, but please don’t take my words out of context."
Since taking the podium from former White House press secretary Sean Spicer (who announced he is joining a pro-Trump super PAC on Thursday), Sanders has carried on the president's hostility toward CNN, singling out Acosta for derision — even refusing to call on the reporter for days at a time.
CNN contributor and Playboy writer Brian Karem jumped in to defend his colleague on Thursday.
"Come on, Sarah. You’re a parent. Don’t you have any empathy for what these people are going through?" he asked.
"I know you want to get some more TV time but that’s not what this is about," Sanders shot back.
"These people have nothing. They come to the border with nothing and they throw children in cages," Karem continued. "You’re a parent. You’re a parent of young children. Don’t you have any empathy for what they go through?"
The only defense Sanders eventually mustered was a deflection of blame to Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration.
"[T]he separation of illegal alien families is the same product that the Democrats refuse to close. These laws are the same that have been on the books over a decade. The president is simply enforcing them,” she said, trying to justify the policy. But reporters, like CBS News' Paula Reid, were quick to call Sanders' statements inaccurate on Thursday.
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