The White House didn't want to talk about the transgender ban, so it just read a letter from a child instead
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders introduced a new feature to her press briefing Wednesday and it sure was conveniently timed.
Only hours after Donald Trump announced a plan to ban transgender people in the military, she kicked off a new "process" that entails reading emails and letters sent to the White House.
Today's letter was from 9-year-old Dylan, aka Pickles, a big Trump fan whose birthday was Trump-themed. The letter is from June 1 -- nearly two months ago.
Sanders read it at the briefing and answered the questions as best she could (video above).
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The obvious avoidance tactic didn't really fly.
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And some even questioned the veracity of the letter and Dylan. Some suggested the letter writer might be connected to Trump's mysterious friend, Jim.
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Once Dylan's letter got so much attention, other letters started popping up.
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Sanders only read the one letter. But she really didn't want to deal with the press after her boss made that major policy announcement on Twitter. She started the briefing more than 30 minutes after its scheduled start time and abruptly ended it because of a previously scheduled event with the president.
She did take several questions about the tweets and military ban and provided some limited information, but at one point said she had nothing more to say about the topic and threatened to end the briefing.
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Sanders really puts the "brief" in "briefing."
Here's the entire press session for your perusal:
Topics Politics
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
