00:00:11.000Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a dear friend of mine, a fighter for our country, someone who defended our president in the den of lions around the activist media is here on the Charlie Kirk Show.
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00:01:01.000Sarah Huckabee Sanders is here, everybody.
00:01:17.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:26.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:39.000Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:41.000I am thrilled to be joined today by my friend, an American patriot and hero, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is the author of the new book, Speaking for Myself, Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House.
00:01:55.000Sarah, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:59.000It's an honor to be with you and always fun to be with friends in a friendly interview.
00:02:04.000I've done some of the others, and trust me, this is much better.
00:02:07.000You did the view, and you also used to run the press briefings at the White House, which I would guess the questions there were probably a lot more unfair than what we are going to be discussing today.
00:02:18.000Can you first just tell us your story, Sarah?
00:02:20.000There are so many young people that listen to this podcast, and I just like telling, having people explain their stories.
00:02:26.000You were, I believe my memory is correct.
00:02:28.000You were deputy press secretary and then became press secretary.
00:02:32.000Just tell us how you got into this political thing.
00:02:35.000Obviously, you come from a family that is probably more political than not, but just walk us through your story.
00:02:41.000Sure, I'll try to give you the quick version.
00:02:44.000So as you know, I grew up in politics.
00:02:46.000My dad ran for office for the very first time when I was nine, and I just couldn't get enough.
00:02:52.000I loved that in politics, you get to meet such a variety of people.
00:02:56.000He had been a pastor and run a communications agency before that.
00:02:59.000And we joke in our family that church work and politics are a lot alike.
00:03:05.000And so I got exposed to such a different world, and I couldn't get enough.
00:03:11.000While most kids were going to summer camp and spending the summer at the pool, I was at the Arkansas Festival Circuit passing out brochures, asking people to vote for my dad, and sitting around the kitchen table, listening to polling results and trying to soak up as much of it as I could.
00:03:30.000The part I liked the most is that you got to do something and then see the impact of those policies on people.
00:03:38.000Every time I would travel with my dad after he was elected governor, I would hear people who would say, you know, the program that your dad put in for children's insurance and children's health care saved my child's life.
00:03:51.000And so getting to put faces with policy really impacted me at a young age.
00:03:56.000And I knew I wanted to be part of something to help other people.
00:04:00.000I'd always been more of a behind the scenes consultant and operative until 2016.
00:04:06.000And I got a call asking me if I was willing to go on CNN on behalf of President Trump.
00:04:11.000I was working for the campaign as a senior advisor, more strategic role at that point.
00:04:16.000And I didn't know enough to say no to going on CNN at the time.
00:05:09.000I spent two and a half years almost every single day by the president's side and loved every minute, even the really challenging and difficult parts.
00:07:10.000You know, most people, it's about their politics.
00:07:12.000For me, it was about my appearance, my makeup, my clothes, my fitness to be a parent.
00:07:17.000Everything was on the table for the liberal mob to come after me.
00:07:21.000And on one particular occasion, an LA Times reporter had written just a pretty scathing article and called me some not so nice words, which I won't repeat because I'd like to block them out.
00:07:33.000And even my own husband didn't know necessarily how to respond and just sort of the staff and people around me thought if we ignored it, it'll go away and, you know, Sarah will be fine.
00:07:47.000We're walking into a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Abe.
00:07:50.000The president has so many more important things on his plate in that moment.
00:07:54.000And he grabs me and turns me and looks straight in my eyes and says, Sarah, you're smart, you're beautiful, and the only reason they come after you is because you're good at your job.
00:08:45.000And so can you also just kind of talk about your time in the White House while you were under the Mueller microscope, which was a sham investigation.
00:08:56.000The House Democrats were doing everything they possibly could to destroy this president and his accomplishments.
00:09:03.000You got a lot done in the time that you were there communicating that and also balancing being a mother.
00:09:21.000You know, some days I'm not sure myself, Charlie, but you're running on pretty much pure adrenaline most of the time.
00:09:28.000You're up by usually 5 a.m. and typically with a barrage of emails and texts and calls from all of the morning show producers.
00:09:38.000A lot of people believe that the White House press secretary's job is only standing at the podium.
00:09:43.000But what they don't know is that almost every reporter in the country and frankly around the world has your cell phone number, your email, and access to your office.
00:09:53.000And so all day, every day, you're fielding calls and requests for information from reporters while at the same time trying to keep up with Donald Trump, which is not an easy task.
00:10:04.000I always say for somebody who's twice my age, he also has twice my energy.
00:10:10.000And the rest of us are just struggling to keep up.
00:10:13.000But the days would start around 5 a.m. dealing with all of the news from the night, morning show producers, prepping for that, and usually tried to be in the office by 7:30.
00:10:24.000I'd rush to get my kids ready for school out the door and arrive to the office for morning meetings.
00:10:32.000And then usually a call from the president to talk about maybe some of his tweets from the morning to what we were going to message on a couple of those.
00:10:41.000Everything that I thought when I got up at five and thought would drive the day would usually change by 7 a.m. when the president started telling us what the news of the day really was.
00:10:52.000And, you know, then we go through a series of meetings, prep time for the briefing, and usually trying to spend as much time during the day with the president and in meetings because it made my job much easier to speak on his behalf if I was in the room and I saw things as they were happening and I could see the process from the beginning.
00:11:16.000One of the things I loved about the president, he doesn't, you know, he's always fighting with the press, but he also understands the power of the press.
00:11:24.000And he knew it would be impossible for me to do my job and communicate his message and speak on his behalf if I wasn't in the room and I didn't know what was going on.
00:11:32.000And so he took me with him everywhere, which was pretty incredible to have a front row seat to history.
00:11:39.000I got to sit across the table from Kim Jong-un and, you know, dozens of other world leaders, which was pretty incredible.
00:11:48.000You asked about the Mueller report in particular, or the Mueller investigation, which was a ridiculous witch hunt that went on for two years, a total waste of taxpayer dollars and time.
00:12:01.000And a lot of that was just perpetuated by Democrats and the media.
00:12:06.000I got to experience firsthand the ridiculousness of that investigation when I was asked to come in and be interviewed by the Mueller team.
00:12:16.000He came in, Mueller quickly said hello.
00:12:19.000And with minutes, I was left with that group of angry Democrats who I'd come voluntarily.
00:12:28.000I wasn't a subject of the investigation.
00:12:30.000And I'd come on my own volition to interview with them at their request.
00:12:36.000And they made me feel like a common criminal from the moment I walked in with just a barrage of questions.
00:12:43.000And I knew at that point that it was, you know, a total waste and that this would be nothing more than an excuse and an avenue to attack the president.
00:12:54.000And so, Sarah, what's incredible is I'm guessing you had to have legal representation there, right?
00:12:59.000And I don't know if you had to pay for it privately or independently, but I know some people in the White House that had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to represent themselves.
00:13:08.000And I mean, if there's anything that should be litigated, it's the Democrats like Adam Schiff that should reimburse everyone that had to pay all these legal fees to defend themselves against this incredibly, I think, illegal and unconstitutional witch hunt.
00:13:24.000I know there are people in the White House that you know, Sarah, we don't have to say their names, that are still in debt over the legal fees they had to pay to defend themselves.
00:13:58.000It is the most intense work environment I've ever seen.
00:14:01.000And that's something that people need to realize: it is a work environment, right?
00:14:06.000I mean, it's obviously it has all the pageantry and it's the people's house, but there are people like you that you go to work every day, and 15 feet outside of your office is the AP Huffington Post and all of these news reporters that are just waiting for one thing to make your life miserable.
00:14:22.000So, how would the day end and how would that actually work?
00:14:31.000There's no typical day in any White House, but especially in the Trump White House.
00:14:36.000And so, most days didn't end until close to midnight.
00:14:39.000I would usually finish at the office and try to leave by seven o'clock so I could tuck my kids into bed.
00:14:46.000And as soon as they went to sleep, I would be back at work on phone and email, usually well into the evening, fielding calls from reporters, working stories before they hit print the next morning.
00:15:00.000And then, you know, you try to get a few hours of sleep and then wake up and do it all over again the next day.
00:15:06.000You don't realize how tired you are until after you leave.
00:15:10.000And then, you know, I had talked to some of my predecessors who were like, take a minute.
00:15:41.000And biochemically, your body gets used to those five-hour nights and you get used to the triple shot espresso.
00:15:46.000And then once you leave the White House, you start to, you know, okay, maybe I'll sleep six and a half hours and your body tries to basically rewire itself back into normalcy.
00:15:55.000And I mean, I've talked to you and other people that have been in the White House.
00:15:59.000It is the hardest place, especially with this president, that someone can work right now because it's not just the pressure of the job.
00:16:06.000You know, I'm sure it was hard for the people that worked in the Obama White House.
00:16:09.000But if someone in the Obama White House did something wrong, the press wouldn't cover it, right?
00:16:41.000So the best preparation for me was, again, spending time around the president, being in meetings as policies were being discussed and formulated and fought out from beginning until their conclusion.
00:16:54.000And so making sure I had a good foundation was really important.
00:16:59.000I had context for when they asked about all of the crazy PALS intrigue stories that they loved to hear.
00:17:06.000I had been in the room, so I had authority and confidence to answer those questions.
00:17:11.000Before the briefing, usually I would have ideally two hours, but a lot of times it would get consolidated into an hour, sometimes even 30 to 45 minutes of prep time with my team where they would come in.
00:17:24.000And the way that I operated best was to do a murder board.
00:17:28.000So they would fire off questions they thought might come up and we would kind of walk through some of those answers.
00:17:35.000You have no idea what's going to be asked.
00:17:38.000You know, kind of the big news of the day and what people are interested in, but anything is on the table.
00:17:45.000And, you know, so you have to sort of prepare for everything.
00:17:48.000Sometimes you just have to go with your gut instinct and hope that you nail it right and don't start a war with another country or crash the economy for the wrong answer.
00:17:58.000And then I would, the last thing I would do before every briefing, usually I would go in and talk to the president, check a couple of questions I needed clarity on, and then I would come back and take a few minutes by myself.
00:18:10.000And I would read the daily devotional from Jesus Calling, Sarah Young's book.
00:18:15.000That was the last thing I would do before I walked into the briefing.
00:18:18.000It was a way for me to calm my mind and a good reminder of what mattered most.
00:18:24.000And after that, I usually had kind of a piece and I would just walk in.
00:18:28.000You know, the briefings lasted anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and take questions and usually battle it out with some of America's toughest and most shrewd journalists there are.
00:18:41.000And, you know, we had some fun moments, that's for sure, and some tough moments.
00:18:47.000And every once in a while, we even had some heartwarming moments in that room.
00:18:52.000I tried to do things that brought the temperature down and allowed us to really get a message out to the American people because ultimately that's what the briefing is supposed to be about.
00:19:02.000Unfortunately, the press sort of turned into more of how do we get the gotcha moment, the takedown moment of not just the staff, but the president himself.
00:19:13.000Yeah, and that's what people have to realize is you are on center stage.
00:19:16.000I mean, you're on five hours of sleep.
00:19:17.000You have to do all the communications.
00:19:19.000If you say one thing wrong, it's everywhere.
00:19:21.000And then you got to go on live TV, middle of the day, where everyone's trying to make that moment.
00:19:25.000It's one of the hardest, most pressure-filled jobs.
00:20:05.000We were in the heat of the moment trying to get funding for border security.
00:20:12.000And the president was hell-bent on making sure he didn't walk out of there without something during this, you know, course of several week battle.
00:20:24.000So he comes into this room and he simply asks Nancy, are you ready to talk about border security?
00:20:30.000Do you actually want to do something on border security?
00:20:33.000She basically said no very quickly, like, we don't have any interest in helping you.
00:20:39.000And the president was like, well, then this is a huge waste of time.
00:21:07.000And Kevin McCarthy goes out immediately.
00:21:09.000I was like, I don't know what room they were in because the one I was in, that didn't happen.
00:21:14.000Yet, of course, the media took the Democrats side, perpetuated their story.
00:21:20.000But ultimately, the president won that battle.
00:21:23.000We're building the wall and he is protecting American citizens, one of the things that he promised he would do in 2016 and has definitely followed through since getting elected.
00:21:33.000No, that's, I remember that very well.
00:21:36.000And the media was trying to make it seem something that it wasn't.
00:21:39.000But, you know, Pelosi and Schumer, they're able to lie and the activist media stands up for them and basically has become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.
00:21:48.000So you also talk in your book here, and you mentioned this about the devotional, your commitment to faith and family.
00:21:55.000Can you talk more about that and how people can apply the lessons that you learned in the White House to their own life?
00:22:01.000Not everyone is under the same sort of scrutiny and pressure that you were, but in their own realm, people deal with adversity every single day.
00:22:08.000What are some things that you knew when you left the White House that you didn't know before you got into the White House that you believe made you a stronger Christian, a better fighter, and also some advice that you could communicate?
00:22:19.000Well, I think one of the most important things for me personally, and it was tested every day, and I had to lean on my faith constantly, was knowing what I believed in and who I was before I ever stepped foot into that building and stepped up behind that podium, not needing the New York Times or the Washington Post or anybody else to define me because I had a God who had already done that, who had created me for a unique and special purpose.
00:22:47.000And it didn't have anything to do with the liberal left or the crazy media that were trying to attack me.
00:22:53.000And knowing that no matter what happened in that room or in that job, at the end of the day, I would still have my faith.
00:23:02.000And I would still have freedom to live in the greatest country on the face of the planet was what gave me confidence to tackle each day.
00:23:08.000It was what gave me the ability, no matter how hard the days were, how difficult the challenge is, to continue showing up day after day and continue fighting back.
00:23:18.000If I hadn't had that, I don't know that I would have made it two and a half years in that White House because it is so brutal.
00:23:26.000But having that confidence and knowing who I was and what I believed in made all the difference in the world.
00:23:34.000The president is in a very tight reelection battle with Joe Biden.
00:23:38.000The fact that it is as tight as it is in some of the public polling, I actually think is incredible.
00:23:43.000And it kind of goes to show the president's perseverance and durability, considering all that the media and the Democrats and the Chinese have thrown at this president.
00:23:51.000It's absolutely incredible with the virus and the cover-up, the impeachment, the spying, all of it.
00:23:58.000What is your analysis of the 2020 race?
00:24:00.000What do you think that the president needs to do to ensure victory?
00:24:04.000And what are some things that we might be missing about the current election cycle?
00:24:08.000Well, I think certainly right now, given everything that's happening around the country, I think the president's message of law and order, safety and security is very important.
00:24:17.000There is so much unrest and so much uncertainty.
00:24:21.000At the end of the day, people want to know that they can walk outside of their homes, that they can drop their kids off at school and not be afraid of being attacked.
00:24:31.000And I think that is a huge contrast between this president and Joe Biden.
00:24:37.000Joe Biden didn't even start talking about the riots and the violence that are taking place in cities all across this country until he saw the poll start to tighten.
00:24:46.000In fact, he didn't even come out of his basement until that moment.
00:24:49.000And to me, that is a huge difference between these two candidates.
00:24:53.000Joe Biden is a person of convenience, not of conviction.
00:24:57.000And it wasn't until that moment when we saw those polls start to tighten that he even brought that up.
00:25:01.000And they don't really have a lot of credibility on the topic when his running mate was busy fundraising to bail people out of jail when these moments were taking place and the president was standing up and saying, guys, we can't have this.
00:25:14.000People certainly have a right to peacefully protest and they should, but they can't burn cities to the ground and destroy businesses.
00:25:21.000The other message I think the president has to lean in on is he built one of the strongest economies we've ever had, and we need him to do it again.
00:25:30.000When we come out of this virus, when we open the government or open the country completely back up, we need somebody who understands how to run a business, how to grow a business, and the impact that that has on a community.
00:26:09.000What did you learn about dealing with the left?
00:26:11.000I mean, you dealt with the most combative public part of this, but so many young people out there are under constant persecution for their conservative, for their constitutional, for their Christian or their pro-Trump beliefs.
00:26:24.000What sort of lessons do you have for them on how to be able to either win an argument or be able to bridge the divide or communicate clearly to the other side?
00:26:33.000Well, I think you know this better than anybody, Charlie.
00:26:36.000You go into the lion's den on the daily basis and challenge a lot of these liberals and beat them.
00:26:44.000I love all of the content and the videos because one of the things I think you do so well is you're well informed.
00:26:52.000And I think that is such a important piece of winning the argument is the facts are on our side.
00:26:57.000The information and the facts line up with conservative principles and conservative values on what will make this country better.
00:27:05.000You do a spectacular job at making sure you're very well informed and you can poke holes in so many of the Democrats' arguments when you know what you're talking about.
00:27:16.000The other thing, and it goes back to what I was saying before, know what you believe in and don't be afraid to speak out about it.
00:27:22.000We cannot allow the liberal mob to bully us into thinking that we're somehow bad people because we believe in something.
00:27:30.000And I think they need to find a community of people that believe like they do.
00:27:35.000They're not alone, and they should know that there is a vast army of conservatives out there who believe in a smaller government, lower taxes, less government intrusion on our everyday life, a strong military, and believe in our faith and our freedom and what makes America special.
00:27:53.000If people will find that community, find that support, and be vocal and stand up for what they believe in, I don't think anything could be more important for young people than figuring out who they are and not being afraid to talk about it.
00:28:53.000And after we get the president reelected, I will make a decision about what 2022 looks like and whether or not I'll run for governor here in Arkansas.
00:29:02.000We have your back no matter what you do.
00:29:05.000Everyone, please pick up a copy of your book.
00:29:06.000And it's so great to have fellow patriots that are fighting for our country.
00:29:11.000And, you know, it's refreshing to have someone who has left the White House and has nice things to say about the president and good things and honest things.