For the Trump administrative team, there are many ways to avoid or deflect from valid questions about their policies. The first and most popular is simply to lie. The second is to blame Democrats or resort to “whataboutism” (what about when Hillary…? what about when Obama…?). Another is to insist that others have done it and no one complained.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders chose yet another tactic to avoid questions today when she avoided questions from reporters altogether by having Department of Homeland Security Chief Kirsten Nielson lead the daily press briefing.
A White House official tells @jeffzeleny that @PressSec didn't want to do the briefing today amid questions on child separation policy, so @SecNielsen is being flown in from New Orleans to take questions.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) June 18, 2018
After Sanders was publicly called out as a mother for supporting Trump’s abusive policy and lying to the American public about it, it seems she backed down from her snarky little fights with the media and weaseled her way out of it like a coward.
Of course, Sanders insists that the leaked information is inaccurate and that she didn’t want out of the press briefing, but there’s no denying that the briefing started quite a bit later than originally scheduled and that Nielson was flown in from New Orleans to make a statement and take questions. She insisted that nothing is happening that is abusive or wrong, that the policy has always been in place, and that the measures are being enacted to keep Americans safe from violent criminals.
There is no excuse, no justification, no amount of deflecting that makes this child abuse okay. They can avoid the questions, but they will not be able to avoid the consequences and the outrage over their actions against children.
Featured image via YouTube
