Now we know why that report surfaced that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is planning to resign
Over the past two weeks we’ve seen a major news outlet report that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was preparing to resign as White House Press Secretary, followed by her public denial, followed by her immediate pullback from doing the job on social media, then followed by her pullback from doing press briefings. Somewhere in there she got kicked out of a restaurant as well. But now something has happened which suggests she really is a goner.
Donald Trump has now gone through too many White House Communications Directors to count. Mike Dubke didn’t last long and never did make an impression. Anthony Scaramucci famously lasted eleven days. Hope Hicks resigned the day after she testified before Congress about her role in the Trump-Russia scandal. For the majority of Trump’s presidency, the position has either remained vacant, or been held by an interim or acting Communications Director. In other words, the position means nothing to the Trump administration, except when he’s looking to use it to shake things up.
So it’s a big deal that it was officially announced this evening that Trump has hired former Fox News boss Bill Shine as his new White House Communications Director. That means Shine is the new boss of Sarah Huckabee Sanders. When you’ve spent the past several months working autonomously, and then someone is hired from the outside to be your new boss, that’s usually a sign that you’re a goner – even in a normal and stable hierarchy. In Trump’s White House, it’s even more the case. He hired Scaramucci specifically to shake things up internally, and sure enough, Huckabee Sanders’ predecessor Sean Spicer resigned immediately.
Let’s keep an eye on this one. Based on the timing, it appears that the CBS News got its tip about Sarah Huckabee Sanders preparing to resign, just as Donald Trump was making the decision to look around and hire a new Communications Director. That can’t be a coincidence. It sounds like CBS had it right. Naturally, in a public position like hers, she’s going to continue denying her resignation right up until the day she announces it. At that point Shine would likely pick the next Press Secretary. Logically, he might pick someone who worked for him at Fox News. Brace yourselves.
