Do NOT Ask Sarah Huckabee Sanders About Reporters Being Booted From the EPA, Whatever You Do

When asked during her Tuesday briefing about the reports from multiple outlets that at least two reporters were barred from an event with EPA chief Scott Pruitt this morning—and an AP journalist physically removed—Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders seemed to get a bit flustered by the questions, insisting she wouldn’t weigh in on “hypotheticals.”

When she was asked for comment on those events, which transpired at an EPA event on water contaminants, for the first time, Sanders responded in her usual equivocating way: “Certainly we weren’t there and were in other meetings here,” she said, speaking for the White House at large.

Yes, of course! No one was asking if this disembodied “we” was doing the actual removing.

When NBC News’ Hallie Jackson took another shot—asking Sanders if it’s ever appropriate, barring security concerns, for administration security to manhandle a journalist—things got awfully snippy!

“I’m not going to weigh into random hypotheticals that may or may not exist,” Sanders replied, referring to events that almost certainly happened earlier that day. “I don’t know any information about this specific incident.”

When Jackson tried to follow up, Sanders cut her off, saying: “You’re asking me to speak to a blanket possibility, which I’m not going to do, nor would I ever ask or expect you to do.”

Every goddamn day you reporters ask Sanders questions she doesn’t want to answer—and she mostly doesn’t—but today it was a bridge too far, apparently. Lucky for her, she made it in and out of that briefing room in what could be a new world record: just 13 minutes, by one reporter’s count. A true beacon of transparency and press freedom.