Sarah Huckabee Sanders (YouTube)
Today’s White House press briefing figures to be one of the most-highly anticipated in all of President Donald Trump‘s young presidency.
But one of the key parts of his tenure, Press Secretary Sean Spicer, won’t even be there.
Instead, Principal Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will take the podium for her second time in less than a week (and second time ever).
Interesting…Sean Spicer will not be running tomorrow’s briefing. Perhaps the busiest one yet. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will run the show.
The press briefing is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. EDT on May 10. It will be streamed live on the White House’s website here. It can also be seen streamed live on major news outlets like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.
Huckabee, the daughter of former Arkansas governor, presidential candidate and political TV analyst Mike Huckabee, will step up into quite a high-profile assignment.
This press briefing comes just one day after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey unexpectedly.
Reporters will be prepared with a slew of questions about Comey’s dismissal, so it should be interesting to see how Huckabee responds to the pressure-packed situation.
The White House issued a statement after Comey, who was leading an investigation into Russia’s connections with Trump’s presidential campaign, was fired. It said Trump removed him from his position “based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Statement from @WhiteHouse @PressSec on @FBI Director
Rosenstein’s recommendation letter to Trump took many by surprise. He was extremely critical of Comey in it, chastising him for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton and her use of a private email server while working as the secretary of state under President Barack Obama.
Read an excerpt from his letter below and click here to read his full, two-page letter.
Over the past year, however, the F.B.l.’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. … I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.
The reason for Spicer’s absence is currently unclear, but he missed a day behind the microphone May 5. That was the first time that Huckabee stood in for him.
That time, Spicer was fulfilling his Navy reservist duty at the Pentagon, CNN reported.
Huckabee got her start in politics during her father’s 2002 re-election campaign for governor in Arkansas. After that, she served as a regional liaison for congressional affairs at the Department of Education. She was also a field coordinator for President George W. Bush‘s 2004 re-election bid.
Then, in 2008, Sarah was the national political director for her dad’s 2008 presidential bid and managed her father’s 2016 presidential campaign as well. She signed on as a senior advisor for the Trump campaign after her dad bowed out of the race and was tasked with handling the Trump campaign’s communications for coalitions.
When Trump won, Sarah got a spot within the administration as the Deputy White House Press Secretary.