Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) repeatedly refused to endorse Donald Trump’s third run for president in an interview on Fox News on Monday.
Instead, the former Trump White House press secretary ― whose two-year tenure in the role was characterized by her peddling of the then-president’s untruths and defense of his outrageous comments ― went off on tangents promoting her work in her state.
Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich first asked Sanders when she was “going to endorse somebody for 2024.”
Sanders replied: “Look, my focus has been on being governor of Arkansas. I’ve only been in office about nine months, and I wanted to really put my head down and focus on the things that were impacting our state. We just got out of our first regular session and special session about a week ago.”
Trump will likely be the 2024 GOP nominee and “is the best chance” the party has in the election, she said.
Co-anchor John Roberts phrased the same question differently. He named the GOP governors backing Trump and asked: “Why not join the group?”
Sanders claimed her “focus is on Arkansas” and said she’d “make that decision when it makes sense.”
“Is there anybody else you would support?” asked Roberts.
“I’ve only been governor for about 15 minutes,” Sanders replied, again ducking the question. “We’ve been able to do amazing and big transformational change for our state. We’re going to continue to do that over the course of the next several months.”
Heinrich asked if Trump had “pressured you at all to endorse him?”
“Look, I love the president, continue to have a great relationship with him, and I don’t see that changing any time soon,” Sanders responded.
