Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a goner: shortlist emerges to replace her

| 9:30 pm EDT July 23, 2018
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Back when CBS News reported that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was preparing to resign from the White House, she strongly denied it – but then she pulled back sharply from the number of tweets and press conferences she participated in. Then Donald Trump hired former Fox News exec Bill Shine as his new Communications Director, who surely wanted to bring in his own Press Secretary. Now a shortlist has emerged to replace Huckabee Sanders, making clear that she’s a goner.

To the surprise of no one, Bill Shine’s shortlist to replace Sarah Huckabee Sanders consists almost entirely of Fox News personalities. According to Politico, they include former Fox News host Heather Nauert, current Fox News figure Bill Hemmer, former Fox News figure Tony Sayegh, and recently departed Fox News figure Kimberly Guilfoyle – who also happens to be Donald Trump Jr’s girlfriend. Does it matter who gets the job? Not really. Trump’s next Press Secretary will simply go out there and lie on his behalf each day, while dishonestly berating reporters. The larger story here is Huckabee Sanders and her impending departure.

This new Politico report characterizes Huckabee Sanders’ deputy Raj Shah as having an outside chance of landing the job, but the original CBS report stated that Shah is heading out the door with Huckabee Sanders. There is still the question of whether Trump brought in Shine to nudge Huckabee Sanders out the door, or did Trump bring in Shine to find a replacement because Huckabee Sanders told him that she was going to leave? Either way, this appears to be anything but a smooth transition.

So now, with Donald Trump’s presidency falling to pieces and his scandals closing in on him by the day, he’s preparing to change White House Press Secretaries – either because he’s scapegoating Sarah Huckabee Sanders, or because she’s trying to escape before the whole thing collapses. What’s even more jarring is that Huckabee Sanders is still hanging around and nominally doing the job for now, even though there’s no longer any question that she’s a goner.