White House Briefing Room After Rare Presser: 'Do Your Job, Sarah!'

Sarah Huckabee Sanders caught flak for leaving the podium after just 15 minutes. Her last briefing was 21 days ago.
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Members of the White House press corps voiced displeasure with Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ job performance on Tuesday afternoon as the White House press secretary’s daily briefings have all but ceased.

One press corps member pulled no punches, yelling: “Do your job, Sarah!”

“That was a 10-minute briefing, Sarah,” another unidentified person in the room can be heard saying as Huckabee Sanders abruptly left.

She spoke to reporters for around 15 minutes, a short time by other administrations’ standards. Huckabee Sanders addressed questions on a spending bill and the delay in national security adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing on charges of lying to federal investigators.

White House press briefings were a daily ― or near-daily ― occurrence in both the Bush and Obama administrations and also occurred frequently at the beginning of the Trump administration.

Over the past year, however, Huckabee Sanders’ briefings have become more and more scarce.

Her last briefing was 21 days ago, on Nov. 27.

Before that, she gave briefings on Oct. 29, Oct. 3 and Sept. 10.

As NPR notes, the briefings have also gotten shorter over time.

The decrease in formal press conferences, however, comes as President Donald Trump has increasingly spoken for himself, many times giving off-the-cuff commentary on the news of the day as he crosses the White House lawn to Air Force or Marine One.

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