White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders accused the media of dividing America on Tuesday, after a series of questions from reporters about whether President Donald Trump was racist.
“Frankly, if we want to look at who’s creating divisions in the country, I think the media has done more to divide this country, certainly far more than this president ever has,” Sanders said during a press briefing at the White House.
Several reporters questioned Trump’s use of the word “dog” to refer to his former aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman, suggesting that Trump was singling out black people for criticism.
Sanders said the president’s response to Manigault-Newman “absolutely nothing to do with race.”
“The fact is, the president is an equal opportunity person that calls things like he sees it,” she said. “He always fights fire with fire and he certainly doesn’t hold back on doing that across the board.”
Sanders asserted that Trump was not singling out one race for criticism.
“To try to single that out to one group is, frankly, silly, because I think if you did a comparison, he’s probably got a lot more nasty things out there about some other people,” she said.
Sanders accused the media of hypocrisy, noting that they did not care about Manigault-Newman until she became critical of the president.
“It wasn’t until this individual started to negatively attack this President and this administration, and try to tear this entire place down, that she received the type of platform and rollout that she’s getting,” she said.
Sanders said it was “sad” that Manigault-Newman embarked on a “self-serving” media blitz, noting that she was never critical of the president when she was in the administration. She pointed the media to positive economic statistics, reforms on school choice, and prison reform as proof that Trump was helping African-Americans.
“This is a President who is governing to help all Americans,” she said. “And I think we’d all be better off if the media gave that just a little bit more attention.”