Huckabee fires back at Axelrod over comment about Sarah Sanders: He ‘earned’ his CNN paycheck

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) tore into CNN’s David Axelrod for saying his daughter, outgoing White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will be remembered as “the spokesperson for a habitual liar.”

Huckabee told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum that he was “shocked and surprised” at the former top Obama campaign adviser’s comments before claiming that CNN “pay[s] people to hate President Trump.”

{mosads}“I’m really shocked and surprised that he would go there to that degree. But again, he’s a CNN contributor. What is he gonna do?” Huckabee said. “That’s what they pay them to do, so I guess he earned his paycheck on that particular segment.”

Huckabee’s remarks came after Axelrod slammed Sanders’s legacy during an appearance on CNN, claiming she will be remembered for “defending the indefensible and not being truthful with the American people.”

“In this job, she was called upon to choose between her fidelity to Trump and her fidelity to the truth, and she chose Trump,” Axelrod said after Sanders announced her resignation.

Huckabee fired back, saying, “People who don’t like Donald Trump don’t like my daughter.”

“And it’s not that they don’t like her because most of them don’t even know her,” he said. “They just don’t like President Trump, and that’s unfortunate because a lot of us do like him, and we’re grateful for what he’s doing.”

Sanders announced her departure from the Trump White House late Thursday afternoon, marking the end of a rocky run as Trump’s top spokeswoman. Sanders, one of the longest-serving members in the Trump administration, often battled with the press corps and faced numerous accusations about her credibility.