Sarah Sanders, the former White House press secretary, announced the official release of her memoir, Speaking for Myself, this week. In the book, Sanders gives details about an occasion in which President Donald Trump jokingly requested that she travel to North Korea and “take one for the team.” These comments came after the president had come to the conclusion that the North Korean Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-Un, had flirted with her during a meeting.
According to excerpts from the memoir, Sanders had noticed that the Supreme Leader stared and then winked at her during the 2018 Singapore Summit. When she later informed the president during a limousine ride, he exclaimed, “Kim Jong-un hit on you! He did! He f–cking hit on you!” and then went on to further say, “You’re going to North Korea. Your husband and kids will miss you, but you’ll be a hero to your country!” The statements amused the president and his then Chief of Staff John Kelly to the point of audible laughter. Sander claims that she had, at one point, told Trump, “Sir, please stop.”
This account is not the only episode of alleged misogynistic misconduct that Sanders recounts.
Sanders’ work, unlike that of the former First Lady’s adviser Stephanie Wolkoff paints the Trump’s administration in a positive light. The 38-year-old former press secretary writes about being born into a Christian Republican family as the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. She was active in her university’s conservative student organizations and went on to work for Huckabee’s gubernatorial re-election campaign. Sanders was attached to both George W. Bush‘s presidential campaigns and even went on to meet her husband, Bryan Sanders, during her father’s subsequent 2016 presidential campaign. Although her father lost the nomination, Sanders found herself welcomed into Trump’s campaign immediately after, staying on for the formation of his administration. She often filled in for then Press Secretary Sean Spicer, before replacing him outright in 2017.
Sanders has been a fierce defender of the president and members of his administration for the majority of her career working – especially when it came to the James Comey firing and the president’s controversial tweets.
However, she did not have kind words to say about former National Security Adviser John Bolton. The former press secretary writes that Bolton was “a classic case of a senior White House official drunk on power, who had forgotten that nobody elected him to anything” after he turned on the president. Sanders left the White House in March 2019, and she then went on to become a Fox News commentator.
While Sanders has made no official announcement as to a future political career, Trump has urged her to run for governor of her home state in a 2019. Trump wrote in a tweet, “She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas – she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!”
