White House press secretary Sarah Sanders wouldn’t say whether President Trump owed special counsel Robert Mueller an apology for lambasting him — at times calling Mueller a “national disgrace” who oversaw a “gang of thugs” — throughout the nearly two-year investigation.
“In the end, this individual conducted an investigation, came to a conclusion that ultimately cleared the president. Did Robert Mueller deserve better from the president?” the “Today” show’s Savannah Guthrie asked Sanders in an interview that aired Monday morning.
“Frankly, I think the American people deserved better,” Sanders said, dodging the question. “They didn’t deserve for the election of this president to try to be taken down.”
Watch @PressSec Sarah Sanders’ full interview with @savannahguthrie about the Mueller report findings. pic.twitter.com/bHrNWCiYpO
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) March 25, 2019
Guthrie pushed Sanders to answer the question. The press secretary seemed to grow frustrated and continued to defend Trump’s attacks on Mueller and his team.
“Are you kidding? The president’s rhetoric matches,” Sanders said. “The media and Democrats have called the president an agent of a foreign government. That is an accusation equal to treason, which is punishable by death in this country.”
Rather than Trump owing Mueller an apology, Sanders said that “Democrats and the liberal media” owe the president and the American people an apology.
Over the weekend, the special counsel released his report on the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, saying he found no collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.
[Read: Attorney General William Barr’s letter on Mueller final report]
