Sarah Huckabee Sanders Insists Everything Is Extremely Fine

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders might be a mush-mouthed, inhumane, professional obfuscater, but even by those abysmally low standards, Wednesday’s press briefing was a master class in total detachment from reality.

The day after President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of numerous felonies and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to a host of financial crimes—implicating the president in the process—Sanders appeared in the White House Briefing Room to make sure that everyone knows that everything is fine. It’s fine!

Seriously, watch the briefing below and count how many times Sanders uses the exact phrase: “The president did nothing wrong, there are no charges against him.”

For more than 20 minutes a tired, dejected Sanders dodged, dipped, ducked, dove, and dodged away from actually responding to question after question regarding:

• Michael Cohen’s having implicated the president in campaign finance crime as part of his guilty plea.
• Suggestions that Cohen may provide Special Counsel Robert Mueller information regarding the president’s role in Russian interference during the 2016 election.
• The fact that the president has surrounded himself with now-convicted felons, despite his pledge to hire “the best people.”
• How Trump could claim he “knew nothing” of hush money payments to his alleged paramours despite the fact that he was caught on tape planning one such payment.
• Whether or not the president ever lied to the American people.

Instead of answering any one of these questions—any one of which would be a major scandal for just about any other politician—Sanders simply retreated to her stock answer, insisting that everything is gravy in Trumpland. And wouldn’t ya know, the economy is booming, too, so please don’t ask us about any more crimes.

These White House press briefings—now, more than ever—are just pathetic pantomimes designed to suggest this administration actually cares about transparency. But after today, given, y’know, everything, it’s just coming off as incredibly sad.