Meet the 4 people apparently in the running to replace Sarah Huckabee Sanders – ThinkProgress

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At least four people could replace outgoing press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Reuters reported this week, citing an unidentified source.

Among the four potential candidates are White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley; Stephanie Grisham, Director of Communications for Melania Trump's First Lady; Heather Nauert, who stepped down as State Department spokesperson in April; and Tony Sayegh, future spokesman for the Treasury Department.

The work of the White House spokesperson can sometimes involve a lot of heavy work – responding to President Donald Trump's tweets, annihilating the administration's most unpopular decisions, and doing so in the midst of an unbridled cycle of information . Sanders seemed to ignore most of these tasks in the final months of his tenure, dispensing with daily press briefings (the last one is over 90 days old) and only occasionally speaking to the press, usually since Alley of the White House.

Her reputation was also put to the test, the lies that she told the press were later revealed in the report of special advocate Robert Mueller, made public in April.

The announcement of Sanders' resignation last Thursday marked another important departure among Trump's staff: the 43rd start since taking office. Sanders would consider running for governorship in his home country, Arkansas, in 2022.

Here's what we know about his potential replacements.

Hogan Gidley

Former special assistant to the president, Gidley seems to be a faithful to MAGA. A native of Arkansas, a graduate in journalism and political science, he previously worked for Sanders' father, Mike Huckabee, as director of media operations. He was also director of communications for Rick Santorum's presidential campaign in 2012.

It should be noted that Gidley believes that the Trump administration deserves "a complicit and compliant media" and regularly accuses the press of misinterpreting the president.

Gidley regularly repeats the president's claims that stories that are unfavorable to the administration are false and biased.

Nauert's style as spokesman for the State Department was calm, though firm. Passing directly from Fox News to the Trump administration, Nauert was ready to photograph, while she took into account the administration's stance on thorny foreign policy issues, sometimes losing (albeit rarely) calm with reporters. foreigners.

In one case, she took pictures of two Russian journalists who contradicted her description of a Russian video describing what Nauert had called intercontinental missiles directed against Florida.

"You come from Russian TV too? Well, that's enough, then, she said at the time.

Nauert was briefly considered for the post of US ambassador to the United States, replacing Nikki Haley. But questions about her lack of diplomatic experience as well as information that she employed a nanny who was not legally allowed to work in the country led her to abandon her job application. Nauert later stated that the two months in which she was detained were "trying" for her family, and she then chose not to return to the State Department.

Stéphanie Grisham

The owner of an Arizona-based public relations firm, Grisham, previously served for Sen. Presidential campaign of Mitt Romney (R-UT) in 2012 and was a press assistant for the Trump campaign in 2016. She was the former White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, during the first month of 2017, before moving to the east wing of the White House to attend the first lady.

In an August 2018 article on Ms. Trump, the Daily Beast quoted sources as describing Grisham as "an extremely competent and self-conscious communicator who is probably kicking off the frenzied speculation that's going on." it helps to arouse. She was, at least in part, "hounding the press," the sources said. "

According to a Washington Post portrait of December 2018, Grisham was perceived as a thought, and "no one with whom to fend for" access to the media and their monitoring on the trail. "

Tony Sayegh

A Lebanese-born New Yorker, Sayegh's mission was to sell Trump's tax reforms as deputy secretary to the Treasury, head of the department's public affairs office.

Coming from the world of political advice and advertising, Sayegh decided to withdraw from work in May, saying that his departure had been in preparation for months.

Before joining the administration, he had been a great commentator on Fox News, not hesitating to criticize Trump. As CNN pointed out, "In his role as a Fox News contributor in 2015 and early 2016, Sayegh described Trump as "the poster of crony capitalism" and pointed to Trump's numerous bankruptcies. Sayegh also lamented at the time "The Trump campaign … boils down to personal insults," calling Trump's proposed travel ban for Muslims "irrational and unconstitutional."

Sayegh later changed his mind when Trump became the Republican candidate, saying that Trump had "massively" gained his trust.

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