Veteran White House reporter April Ryan is setting the record straight amid accusations from White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders that she called for violence against discredited Trump officials.
During a Monday appearance on “Fox and Friends,” Sanders argued the liberal media had reached a “new low” after Ryan called for the “lopping the heads off” of those in the Trump White House, taking the remark as a literal demand for her decapitation.
“Look, I have had reporters say a lot of things about me,” she told the Fox News show. “They’ve said I should be choked, they said I should deserve a lifetime of harassment but [I’ve] certainly never had somebody say that I should be decapitated.”
Ryan criticized Sanders after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report last week, arguing the press secretary had lost all credibility after the report revealed Sanders made baseless claims about “countless” FBI agents cheering President Donald Trump‘s firing of ex-FBI director James Comey in 2017.
In his report, Mueller wrote that Sanders “acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.” For that, Ryan argued the press secretary deserved to be fired.
“Not only does she not have credibility, she lied. She outright lied,” Ryan told CNN’s Erin Burnett last Thursday. “And the American people cannot trust her. Therefore, she should be let go. She should be fired, end of discussion.”
She continued: “When there’s a lack of credibility there, you have to start, and start lopping the heads off. It’s ‘Fire Me Thursday’ [or] ‘Fire Me Good Friday.’ She needs to go.”
On Twitter, the journalist declared called Sanders a “liar, liar dress on fire!” and said the stakes were too high to be spreading misinformation form the press secretary podium.
Sanders shot back at Ryan on “Fox and Friends,” saying her criticism “proves why no one takes this journalist seriously.”
“I think our team needs to remain focused on how we keep pushing those things that actually help Americans, and not engage in these petty fights with journalists that, again, shouldn’t be taken seriously and I don’t think are taken seriously and are just looking for a couple more minutes on TV,” said Sanders. “And, frankly, I feel sorry for them.”
Ryan would respond by posting the full video of her comments calling for Sanders to be canned, captioning the post “Here is the full statement on lack of credibility of @PressSec who admitted under oath that she lied!”
Ryan’s tongue-lashing also prompted a response from Sanders’ father, Mike Huckabee, who spewed disparaging remarks against the seasoned reporter during a fiery Twitter beef that played out on Friday.
“So liberals — is this okay?” Huckabee wrote of Ryan’s comments. “Does CNN have the integrity to deal w/ this incitement to murder?”
Ryan quickly clapped back at Huckabee with a few tweets of her own, including one that read: “You sir need to sit down. You gave me a veiled threat not long ago. You call yourself a man of God? Boy bye! As your people come for me! My people see you and will do the same for you!”
In a follow-up tweet, the American Urban Radio Networks bureau chief recalled the former Arkansas governor’s threat to “gut her like a deer” and warned, “don’t lie! God is watching and I have tape!”
“By the way, you should be celebrating Good Friday or do you even remember Jesus anymore?” Ryan added. “He would not come down from the cross just to save himself! He decided to die…”
Watch more in the video below.
"Not only does she not have credibility, she lied. She out and out lied…the American people can’t trust her," says @AprilDRyan of Press Sec. Sarah Sanders.
"She should be let go. She should be fired, end of story…it’s fire me Thursday or fire me Good Friday. She needs to go." pic.twitter.com/M0whZiHg1l— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) April 19, 2019
