Sarah Huckabee Sanders Leaving White House at the End of June 2019

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary who fiercely defended President Trump through one of the most tumultuous periods in American politics and presided over the end of the daily White House news briefing, will step down at the end of June 2019. No successor was immediately announced. 

Breaking with decades of tradition, Sanders effectively killed the daily briefing from the White House lectern that had been one of the visible symbols of multiple presidencies. It has been 94 days since she held a formal briefing. Instead, she left it to President Trump, who prefers to speak for himself and takes questions from reporters on a far more regular basis than most of his recent predecessors. Sanders was left to go on Fox News regularly to defend President Trump against his critics, stepping out to the network’s camera outside the West Wing and then occasionally stopping afterward to talk with other reporters on the White House driveway for a few minutes before heading back into the building.