Sarah Huckabee Sanders Defends Trump On 'Morning Joe' Twitter Attacks

WASHINGTON, DC — White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday defended President Trump's incendiary Twitter comments, which were widely criticized in the media and by fellow Republicans. She tore into the media for its extensive coverage of these remarks. You can watch a replay of the briefing below.

The comments in question came from Trump's Twitter Thursday morning, in which he attacked the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe." He called Joe Scarborough "psycho" and Mika Brzezinski "low IQ" and falsely said their ratings are bad. He also lashed out at Brzezinski for supposedly getting cosmetic surgery in a screed that many observers found sexist. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

On Fox News Thursday morning, Huckabee Sanders said in response to the tweets: "This is a president who fights fire with fire and certainly will not be allowed to be bullied by liberal media." It's not clear how tenable this defense will prove, however; many Republican lawmakers, including Speaker Paul Ryan, denounced the president's tweets.

"I don't view that as an appropriate comment," Ryan said.

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and one-time presidential candidate, said in response to the tweet, simply: "Inappropriate. Undignified. Unpresidential."

Asked if Trump went too far at the daily press briefing, Huckabee Sanders said, "I don't think it's a surprise that this president fights fire with fire."

She said that it seemed like "we were living in the Twilight Zone," because the "Morning Joe" hosts have been extensively critical of the president. When asked if this tweet was "beneath the dignity of the office," as many Republican and Democratic lawmakers have said, she opined that Trump lives up to the dignity of the office every day.

Some critics of the president said he should be trying harder to increase civility in the office, especially in light of the violence that broke out when a shooter attacked Republican lawmakers at a Congressional baseball practice. Huckabee Sanders said Trump has never in any way advocated violence. However, Trump once promised to pay the legal bills of people who attacked protesters at his rallies.

"The American people elected a fighter, they didn't elect someone they expected to sit back," she said. "They knew what they were getting when they voted for Donald Trump."

When asked about the nature of the tweets as an attack on a woman, Huckabee Sanders said she is frequently attacked, but she doesn't complain about getting attacked as a woman. She did not directly answer a question about whether the president's tweets helped unite the country, as he has called for.

The deputy press secretary clearly became frustrated with the amount of questions about the tweets. She said the media should focus more on policy issues and criticized cable news for excessively covering the Russian investigation into the Trump campaign.

Meanwhile, legislative items remain on the agenda, including health care reform and two bills on immigration.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced at the press briefing that the administration would impose new sanctions on a Chinese bank tied to the North Korean government. However, he declined to go into specific details about why this particular bank was targeted, whether China was involved or what the consequences would be.

"We will continue to take very significant action, rolling out sanctions on North Korea until they stop their behaviour," he said, as the Guardian's David Smith reported.

Watch a live stream of the event below:

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images