The White House press secretary — who now hides from the press — defended a mob of MAGA hat-wearing teenagers trying to intimidate a Native American man.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has all but stopped functioning as a press secretary — she hasn't conducted a press briefing, usually held daily, in well over a month. So, what does Sanders do to justify her $165,000 salary? She lies for Donald Trump on Fox News, bashes the media she partially reports to, and spreads inflammatory racial rhetoric to the public.

Not surprisingly, Sanders jumped on the fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller disputes parts of Buzzfeed's recent report that Donald Trump told his onetime lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about his Russian business deals. Buzzfeed stands by its story, and Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, admitted (but later retracted after Trump went ballistic) that Trump lied to the American public about his deals with Russia, specifically a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.

Fox News' greatest Trump cheerleader, Sean Hannity, teed it up for Sanders on his Tuesday night program, asking the underutilized press secretary whether Americans were losing faith in the media.

WH bashes media: "Never seen people so happy to destroy a kid's life" https://t.co/a7PSwkorW7 pic.twitter.com/lY4pRxsTGO — Talking Points Memo (@TPM) January 23, 2019

“I think what happened with Buzzfeed is a great lesson for the media,” Sanders said. “Quit trying to be first and start trying to be right. We have seen time and time again where they run out here with outrageous, ridiculous stories. One person reports it to begin with and they all jump on it. We saw it again with the Covington students. I’ve never seen people so happy to destroy a kid’s life.”

Sanders defending the Covington, Ky., students, who wore hats that symbolize racism and xenophobia to a rally, is not a surprise — she happily works for a man who defends neo-Nazis. Nor is it shocking that Sanders took advantage of figures on the left who criticized the students, using them as ammunition for her war against the press; discrediting the media is the only way for her to counter the barrage of Trump scandals that break on an hourly basis. But all of this is indeed offensive. Tens of thousands of federal workers are not getting paid, but we, the taxpayers, cover the salary for a professional gaslighter who can't even show up to the office every day.

Resign, Sarah.

NEAL BROVERMAN is the executive editor of The Advocate. Follow him on Twitter @nbroverman.