Sarah Sanders brushes off CNN’s April Ryan: ‘This journalist is not taken seriously’

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday that CNN analyst April Ryan’s latest attack “once again proves why this journalist is not taken seriously.”

“I have had reporters say a lot of things about me. They said I should be choked. I should deserve a lifetime of harassment. I certainly never had anybody say I should be decapitated,” Sanders told “Fox & Friends.” “This takes us to new low, even for the liberal media.”

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Ryan calls for Sanders firing

Ryan used the graphic language in calling for President Donald Trump to fire Sanders last week after the Mueller report, released with redactions Thursday, showed that Sanders misled reporters when she said that “countless” FBI agents had lost confidence in James Comey, who Trump fired in May of 2017. Ryan accused Sanders of “lying” and said that she “lost all credibility.”

“Not only does she not have any credibility left, she lied,” Ryan told CNN anchor Erin Burnett. “She outright lied and the people, the American people, can’t trust her. They can’t trust what’s said from the president’s mouthpiece, spokesperson, from the people’s house. When there is a lack of credibility there, you have to start and start lopping the heads off … She needs to go.”

Sanders isn’t worried

Responding to Ryan’s comments Monday, Sanders was characteristically unflappable. The press secretary said that she had an enjoyable Easter weekend with her family and that she doesn’t intend to lose any sleep over childish, “petty” jabs from attention-seeking journalists.

“I think it just once again proves why this journalist is not taken seriously,” Sanders said. “I spent the weekend with my family thinking about the things that we’re grateful for. One of the things I’m most grateful for is all that this president has accomplished … I think our team needs to remain focused on how we keep pushing those things that actually help Americans and not engage in these petty fights with journalists that, again, shouldn’t be taken seriously … and are just looking for a couple more minutes on TV.”

Sanders said at a May 2017 press briefing that “countless” FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey, shortly after Trump fired him, but Robert Mueller wrote in his report that “the evidence does not support those claims” and that Sanders explained to Mueller’s team that “countless” was a “slip of the tongue.” Defending the comments last week, Sanders told Sean Hannity that she misspoke but that Comey’s firing was justified and that it was “not untrue” that a number of FBI agents supported Trump’s decision.

Attention-seeking media

Sanders said that Democrats and the liberal media are lashing out after they “lost the collusion battle” and that the country is ready to move on from the collusion story, but the media just won’t let it go since they don’t have an alternative message to “Dump Trump.” Sander said that the Trump administration will ignore the “noise” of petty journalists looking to pick fights with the White House and “keep fighting” for Americans.

“Frankly I feel sorry for them,” she said. “They lost the collusion battle…..they’re looking for anything they can hang on to keep this story alive, and frankly I think it’s time to move on, I think the country is ready to [move on]….We’re going to continue fighting and ignore all the extra noise from journalists trying to get a couple extra minutes of TV time.”

The release of the Mueller report set off a days-long meltdown as Democrats and journalists scrambled to spin Mueller’s exoneration of the president into a victory. Democrats have ramped up calls for impeachment, while the mainstream media has largely congratulated itself for its reporting on the Mueller investigation while doubling down with attacks on the president. Since Mueller’s report exonerates Trump of collusion, Democrats and journalists have shifted their focus to evidence of obstruction of justice, even though the special counsel determined there was not enough to support a criminal charge.

Petty drama continues

Speaking of petty attacks, Ryan also targeted Sanders’ father, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R), over Easter weekend in a series of tweets after Mr. Huckabee weighed in on Ryans’ comments about his daughter. The former governor blasted Ryan’s “incitement to murder” Friday and called for her press credentials to be revoked, prompting Ryan to tweet that Huckabee will not get into heaven when he dies.

This is not Ryan’s first attempt to pick a fight with Sanders. In 2017, Ryan suggested that Sanders’ Thanksgiving pie wasn’t real. When Sanders offered to bake Ryan a pie, Ryan claimed that Sanders would poison it. Last year, Ryan claimed that Sanders was encouraging death threats against her and demanded that Sanders reimburse the cost of the bodyguards Ryan hired for protection.

Mueller’s report dealt a blow to the credibility of the mainstream media, but journalists like Ryan don’t seem terribly interested in rehabilitating their reputation as drama-seeking, out-of-touch narcissists.