From Esquire

In general, and because life is far too short, we ignore the now-rare appearances by Sarah Huckabee Sanders behind the podium in the White House press room. But on Tuesday, in an exchange with Terry Moran of ABC News, SaraHuck was asked about the big, beautiful Wall with big, beautiful doors for which Mexico is going to pay, except that it's not, and how it is going to happen that Americans aren't going to get stuck after all with the check for this idiotic and massive physical manifestation of the foul hauntings of the president*'s mind.

Hilarity ensued.

“Look, we’re not asking American taxpayers for that. We are looking at existing funding through other agencies right now that we can draw on to do that immediately. The president has been clear that the USMCA deal would provide additional revenue through that deal that would show that Mexico is paying for the wall.”

Except, of course, trade deals benefit private individuals and enterprises, not the government. Moran tried to explain this to SaraHuck, whose programming does not include thinking on her feet.

“[Trump’s] saying the revenue provided and the money that would be saved through the USMCA deal, we could pay for the wall four times over. And by doing that new trade deal we have the opportunity to pay for the wall.”

Nope, said Moran. Not the way trade deals work.

"The president has been clear that the USMCA deal would provide additional revenue through that deal that would show that Mexico is paying for the wall," Sarah Sanders tells ABC News' @TerryMoran when asked if American taxpayers will pay for the wall https://t.co/Pqd36RbV0f pic.twitter.com/OnBlTZCp8W - ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) December 18, 2018

Ah, said SaraHuck, but general revenues.

"He’s talking about the general revenue that comes from that. We’re talking about additional revenue that wouldn’t have existed without the president getting a new deal.”

At this point, Moran, who must have felt as though he were debating financial details with a fish, reminded SaraHuck that she was coming dangerously close to saying that, yes, Americans were going to have to pay for the wall for which Mexico was going to pay.

No, we're not taxing. We're talking about additional revenue that wouldn't have existed without the president getting a new deal.

Moran had a question.

Have you done the math on that?

Corruption has stolen the headlines this week, and rightly so, but never lose sight of the fact that these people don't know what they're talking about, either.





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