At a press conference on Tuesday, reporter April Ryan asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether or not Donald Trump owed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand an apology for tweeting that Gillibrand would come “begging” to him for campaign contributions and that she “would do anything for them.”
This was the exchange that ensued:
Ryan: Is Gillibrand owed an apology for the misunderstanding from the president’s tweet this morning because many including the senator think that it’s about sexual innuendos.
Sanders: I think only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way. And, um. So no.
Ryan’s face in reaction to Sanders’s gutter statement was the only appropriate response:
To review, this was the tweet in question:
Most everyone interpreted this tweet as vile sexual innuendo because it was, no gutters necessary. And, as Jezebel’s Joanna Rothkopf pointed out, just because it’s on Twitter and Sarah Huckabee Sanders tells you it’s fine doesn’t mean it’s not sexual harassment.