Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is in the midst of a big scandal in Arkansas over her supposed purchase of a nearly $20,000 podium. But you’d never know that from watching her celebrate her latest anti-woke measure on the Hannity show.
I wrote about PodiumGate for Crooks and Liars earlier this month:
It’s a convoluted tale to be sure but the gist is that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ostensibly bought a $20,000 podium from a pal and seems to be desperately doing everything she can to cover up the details from inquiring minds. And we’re not even sure she really spent the 20 grand on a podium.
The big questions are why did the lectern cost $19,000, why was it purchased in Paris, from Huckabee Sanders’ girlfriend’s company, former Trump consultants in the D.C./Virginia area, and why did that same girlfriend go to Paris at the same time Huckabee Sanders was there for a trade delegation? I mean, we can take guesses but we don’t know.
Last week, Arkansas lawmakers approved an audit into the purchase that was expected to begin immediately. Even worse, evidence has come out that Sanders instructed her executive assistant to alter the invoice for the lectern.
On Tuesday, Huckabee Sanders defended the purchase by talking up its features at a news conference – while using a different podium.
With all that swirling around, Huckabee Sanders decided to up her conservative cred by banning gender-neutral terms from state documents, even though she could only come up with one example of one such now-banned term being used.
The effort got her booked on the Hannity show. Huckabee Sanders took a victory lap against the forces of woke-ism, saying, “We’re no longer going to allow them to redefine terms that weaken and frankly demean women here in state government, documents and here in the state of Arkansas.”
Host Sean Hannity immediately changed the subject to a Fox fave: using the Hamas attack on Israel to fear monger that it will happen here, thanks to President Joe Biden’s “open border.” Never mind that Arkansas is not a border state. The point seemed very much to let viewers know that Huckabee Sanders is part of the tribe (even if she may be a secret lesbian who treated her gal pal to a fancy trip to Paris, with taxpayer money, and covered it up by claiming she bought a fancy lectern).
“I've just got to wonder how you, as a governor, how you feel about the fact that in all likelihood, terrorists, people that have terrorist sympathies, have gotten into this country and terrorist cells exist. And there's been no vetting of any of these people. What do we do about that?” Hannity asked. You gotta admit, the guy knows how to drop a hint to a guest.
Huckabee Sanders took the hint and ran with it. She blamed all the problems in the world on Biden: “This is the exact type of policy that this administration has allowed to not only weaken our country, but also embolden our enemies,” she said. “The reason that we are seeing things around the world, where we are fighting two different wars, are because of the disastrous policies of this administration, whether it was empowering Iran, whether it's weakening our own border, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, every single area that they engage in, they either fail or weaken the strength of our country, and we cannot allow them to continue pushing these disastrous policies that not only hurt our country, but hurt our allies,” she spewed.
Hannity was satisfied. He said, “You’re doing a great job down there in Arkansas. Happy about the fact that you won that race by a huge margin. Congratulations.”
Huckabee Sanders became governor in January. We’ll see if she makes it through the whole term. One thing is for sure, though. Hannity will do everything he can to see that she does.
You can watch Hannity ignore the scandal he’d be screaming about if it involved a Democratic governor below, from the October 19, 2023 Hannity.