Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Crusader

By Prachi Gupta | September 17, 2018 | 4:07pm

News Politics

Given Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s ability to deflect, the New Yorker’s new profile on the White House press secretary is about as clarifying and detailed as one could be; it doesn’t reveal many new insights about Sanders, so much as confirming much of what her public persona displays: that she is an ultra-conservative evangelical Christian who is, if not entirely politically aligned with Trump, fiercely loyal to a man who will further her own ambitions and political agenda.

But there is a moment in the profile that Sanders seems to show a bit more of how she justifies her role in the White House. No one expects an honest or deeply reflective answer from a woman who defends the Trump White House for a living, but Sanders’s response is telling—clearly, she sees herself as some kind of force for righteousness:

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“I’m not going to my office expecting it to be my church,” she answered. “Frankly, if people of faith don’t get involved in the dirty process, then you’re missing the entire point of what we’re called to do. You’re not called to go into the places where everyone already thinks like you and is a believer—you have to go onto a stage where they’re not.” She went on, “You have to take that message into the darkest places, and the dirtiest places, and the most tainted and dysfunctional places. If you can influence even one person, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” (Later, Sanders said that she was speaking broadly, about her social duty as a Christian and not about the White House.)

Then, an abrupt return to form:

I said a lot of Americans feel that the person who needs the most help is Trump.

“We all need help,” she said. “That’s the whole basis of Christianity. No one is perfect. We are all sinners.” I asked her if she considered Trump racist. She said no.

She has a job to do, after all.

You can read the rest at the New Yorker.