Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who often has the impossible job of speaking on behalf of an improvisational president, on Monday gave herself an easier gig: She presented herself as the spokeswoman for civility.

In her first press briefing in a week — she had not fielded questions since President Donald Trump caved on his signature “zero tolerance” immigration stance and signed a hastily drafted executive order ending family separations at the border — Sanders first chose to address a personal experience from over the weekend, when she was asked to leave a restaurant, the Red Hen, in Lexington, Virginia, because of the staff’s disagreement with the policies she helps promote.


“I was asked to leave because I work for President Trump,” she said, careful not to personally attack the restaurant owner as she read from a prepared statement. “We are allowed to disagree but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm.”

“A Hollywood actor publicly encouraged people to kidnap my children,” Sanders continued. “This weekend, a member of Congress called for people to push back and make clear to those serving their country and this administration that they are not welcome anywhere, any time, for anything.”

All of it, she said, was “unacceptable.”

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

It’s not yet clear whether the treatment of Sanders over the weekend — coupled with the similar experiences of two other senior administration officials, Stephen Miller and Kirstjen Nielsen, who were recently heckled at restaurants in Washington — simply reflects how deeply the administration’s immigration fiasco has resonated with people across the country, or whether it hints at a newly unbreachable political divide.

Either way, the moment was seen as politically expedient for Sanders and the White House, offering a way to toggle to the politics of grievance rather than sit in the mire of the president’s botched immigration plan, where the president is trying to take credit for solving a problem he, himself, created.

Incidents like Sanders’ experience at the Red Hen and the ensuing outrage aimed at Trump officials “validates everything we think is wrong with the Democrats,” said Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “This is what pushes me to be pro-Trump.”

He added: “From the point of view of the people who did this, they feel good about it because they ‘spoke truth to power.’ From Sarah’s point of view it’s good for her, it makes her sympathetic and a victim. From everyone else’s point of view, the whole thing is lousy as we become a less civil country.”

Protesting an administration’s most public faces is not new. Fleischer recalled being greeted at Middlebury College, where he was set to receive an award, by some 1,500 protesters calling him a “baby killer” and a war criminal for being part of the administration that led the country into the war in Iraq. “I was with my fiancee, Becky,” he said. “They had to separate us. It’s just undignified and unpleasant. It’s not how I conduct myself in politics.”

But staging protests against officials when they are off the clock, in their private lives, feels to many like something new taking hold.

Some also compared the Red Hen incident to this year’s White House Correspondents‘ Dinner, where comedian Michelle Wolf made a series of jokes about Sanders’ character that seemed to ride the line of criticizing Sanders’ appearance. That night, another White House official, Mercedes Schlapp, and her husband, Matt, staged a showy walkout during the set to demonstrate their outrage over Sanders’ victimhood.

“Republicans love to play the victim,” said Brian Fallon, a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “They love to run against Democrats as the party of the elites and act like they’re being condescended to.” Fallon said he saw nothing wrong with the restaurant 86-ing Sanders, or the comedian making Sanders the butt of the evening’s jokes.

But Sanders doesn’t particularly like being the story, allies in the West Wing said, even if cultural arguments are generally seen as a political win for the boss and a convenient pivot for the briefing room. On Monday, however, Sanders decided to lead with her statement about the Red Hen experience in order to, as White House source said, “head it off at the pass.” The president agreed with her that it needed to be addressed. But it was Sanders who decided to get it done up front. In the briefing that followed, however, reporters mostly stuck to pressing her for more details about the administration's fuzzy immigration plan.

It was a different course than she charted last time she became the story. Colleagues noted that Sanders never said anything after the White House Correspondents‘ Dinner, letting the look of discomfort and disgust that lingered on her face speak for itself. The president said earlier this month on “Fox & Friends” that his press secretary did not have to take the high road that night, and could have simply walked out. He has made the same comment internally, wondering out loud how the situation would have played out differently if she had.

Unlike Sean Spicer, her predecessor in the job, Sanders has managed never to become the story because of accidentally created news from behind the lectern. (Spicer famously had to apologize after suggesting that Adolf Hitler never used chemical weapons, and therefore Syrian President Bashar Assad was guilty of far worse acts than the Holocaust.)

That has gained her many allies internally. Colleagues have talked up the idea that Sanders should run for office herself: at one point when it looked like Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton might move to replace outgoing CIA Director Mike Pompeo, some seriously encouraged her to think about her own bid for office in her home state.

Former government officials — including Republicans — were quick to call out Sanders for breaching government ethics rules by using her official position, and Twitter account, to attack a private business. But Sanders brushed away any concerns about impropriety on Monday, proving again that she is deft at dodging questions without making news.

On Monday, for instance, when asked what would happen to detained families after 20 days, when they are no longer allowed to be held, she simply said she hoped that Congress would pass a bill before that.

“Why should it be so hard?” she said.

