Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has found herself another unlikely defender after getting booted from a Virginia restaurant simply for working for the Trump administration: Former President Bill Clinton.
On Tuesday, Clinton stopped by "The Daily Show" to promote his new book, "The President Is Missing," which he co-authored with famed thriller novelist, James Patterson. However, it didn’t take long for host Trevor Noah to shift the conversation to today’s debate about civility and whether or not Sanders deserved to be kicked out of a restaurant because of her political affiliations.
"That's a decision for the restaurant owner to make," Clinton started out.
“But,” he continued, “what I'd like to point out is, would it be better if that didn't happen? I think it would.”
Of course, the former president then took the opportunity to lay some blame on our current president.
“You know, a lot of poison has been poured down America’s throat since that 2016 campaign,” he said, noting the time Trump referred to immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border as “rapists and murderers.”
“It’s hard to pour poison down other people’s throat and not have some of it come back up and bubble up,” he added.
The comment was met with applause before Clinton circled back to the restaurant owner and Sanders.
“I read the article about the lady who owned the restaurant," he told Noah, "and I wound up with a lot of respect for the way for the way she debated it. But I also had a lot of respect for the way Sarah Huckabee Sanders handled it. I mean, she was very dignified, she didn't chew them out, she didn't pitch a fight, she didn't call them 'an immigrant-loving thug' or whatever. She just got up and left—and offered to pay.”
This isn’t the first time Sanders has proved she’s a class act. Many praised the Press Secretary for how she handled Michelle Wolf’s verbal beating at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner earlier this year. Not to mention, all the times Sanders has expertly held her own against a room full of rabid reporters.
After commending Sanders, Clinton started to wrap up the conversation with what seemed like a pretty good a message: “Sooner or later, people need to quit tearing each other down and go to work.”
And then he ruined it.
“But I think you can't foment as much hatred as has been fomented by the administration without having a blowback. So if they want to have more civility, they need to stop the name-calling and take the lead.”
Because nothing says civility and “let’s put our differences aside and work together” like pointing fingers. Like wife, like husband, I guess.