Sarah Huckabee Sanders to give GOP response to the State of the Union

We are told again and again that the Republican Party is ready to move on from Donald Trump. So how better to show the world that you have moved on from Donald Trump than to have your response to the State of the Union delivered by Donald Trump's most famous propaganda chief? Yes, former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You remember her, right? She's the person who lied about Donald Trump not knowing about the hushbunny he paid to Stormy Daniels. She lied about the number of terrorists apprehended at the southern border. She lied about Democrats being responsible for Trump's policy of separating children from their parents at the border. She lied that Donald Trump had never promoted or encouraged violence. And she lied that Donald Trump had created many more jobs for black Americans than President Obama did.

And she was even caught by special counsel Robert Mueller lying about Trump's firing of her FBI director James Comey in May of 2017. After Sanders claimed that the FBI rank and file had lost faith in Comey, a reporter called her out. You're not going to choose such confidence that rank and file within the Bureau lost faith in the FBI director. There's a special agent who's inside who wrote us who said, the vast majority of the Bureau is in favor of Director Comey. This is a total shock. This is not supposed to happen. The real losers here are 20,000 frontline people in the organization because they lost the only guy working here in the past 15 years who actually cared about them.

So what's your response to these rank and file FBI agents who disagree with your case? Contingent that they lost faith in Director Comey? Look, we've heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things. She later admitted to the Mueller team that never happened. She said her statement about hearing from countless members of the FBI was a quote slip of the tongue. Yes, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now the governor of Arkansas, is who Republicans have put forward to represent them at what is arguably the most important political event of the year. A woman who lied and lied and lied until she was forced under oath to tell the truth. With that in mind, remember when she's speaking tomorrow that sadly, she won't be under oath. Tara set my word as a Republican communications director on Capitol Hill.

She is now a senior advisor at the Anti-Trump Lincoln Project and joins me now. Tara, you are a big critic of the Republican party. I think that's fair to say. Before we get to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, what should the party be saying tomorrow night in response to the State of the Union from a Democratic president? If it was still a salvageable party, what should it be saying? Well, I mean, first of all, the response to the State of the Union, no one cares about us. But people in the media, people inside the Beltway, average Americans really don't pay attention to the State of the Union response unless there's a mistake or something memorable like Marco Rubio and the water incident or something like that. So it's really pretty inconsequential for the most part. But it is also an opportunity for the party that's not in power to usually highlight their rising stars, someone that they think should get that opportunity for national attention and help set the agenda.

Apparently, in this case, they think that's Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But normally, what a party would do is they would just compare and contrast, right? They would say, well, this is not what we, you know, this is, this is, this record isn't great. We're going to do this instead. The president hasn't done X, Y and Z. It's pretty pro forma political tit for tat, usually during a State of the Union. But we see now, though, it's very clear, like I said, the people they put forward to do the responses are usually who the party feels are the up and coming rising stars and people that they want a national spotlight put on. And what does that say that it's Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Yes.

Yes. Why would you want to put a spotlight on her? I get it. She's the first woman governor of Arkansas at age 40. She's the youngest of any current governors. But I mean, many would argue, first of all, she's just a nepo baby. She's the governor of a state her father was governor of. Her father was a famous Trump-sicker fan before she got the press secretary job.

And then, of course, there is her record of nonstop lying, which was immortalised, you know, on SNL and everywhere else. Why bring her back? Because it's on brand for the Republican Party. It's a party of liars, lackeys and looms. And if you don't believe me, tune into the response tomorrow night at the State of the Union or just tune into who's running the House floor. Marjorie Taylor Greene was running House proceedings today. These are the people that the Republican Party is continuing to give power, spotlight, credibility to. And I mean, that's why I left the party.

That's why at the Lincoln Project, we continue to hold, try to hold these people accountable and expose them for what they're doing, because this is who the party is.

Chris Hayes