Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mike Huckabee talk Trump, political outlook at Desert Town Hall Series

Early into her work on the Trump campaign in 2016, Sarah Huckabee Sanders received a call from a campaign manager with a request: Would she be willing to give an interview on CNN the next morning?

“At the time, I didn't know any better. I said, ‘Sure, why not?’” Sanders recalled. “So I went on, and they call me back that afternoon and say, ‘Hey, you're not that bad. Would you do it again tomorrow?’ … So I did, and for several days, I was doing an interview on a different show on a different news network.”

About a week later, Sanders received a call from “a booming voice” — then-candidate Donald Trump — with one instruction: “The only thing I want you to do is to go on TV,” Sanders remembers the soon-to-be president telling her.

Sanders, who joined the Trump campaign after her dad, Mike Huckabee, dropped out of the presidential race after a poor performance in the Iowa caucus, told the story alongside her father during their visit to the Coachella Valley on Tuesday, kicking off this year’s Desert Town Hall series with a discussion of their support of Trump, as well as their belief that the United States is "at a true crossroads" in its history.

The daughter and father, both of whom hail from Arkansas, spoke broadly about their careers at the Renaissance Esmerelda Resort and Spa in Indian Wells as part of the Desert Town Hall Series, presented by the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation and sponsored in part by The Desert Sun. 

The series frequently brings in well-known national political figures, such as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2019. Some of Desert Town Hall's other previous speakers include former president George W. Bush, former presidential candidate and current U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney and Caroline Kennedy, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan and child of John F. Kennedy. 

Tuesday’s talk brought together a father-daughter pair on opposite ends of their political careers. Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 until 2007, and has since worked as a political commentator, writing more than a dozen books, contributing to commentary on Fox News and now hosting a talk show on Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Huckabee, a Baptist minister who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2008 and 2016, quipped that his current job is far easier than his past work as an elected official.

“You get media contracts to be a commentator on television, where you get to talk about the people who run and serve,” Huckabee said. “Here's what I can tell you: It's the easiest job you've ever had in your life, and it pays way better than anything you’ve ever done.”

Meanwhile, Sanders still has hopes of soon holding elected office, after announcing in early 2021 that she is running for governor of Arkansas this year. She has since built a considerable war chest for her campaign, raising roughly $12.8 million during her bid for elected office, according to The Hill.

But during the discussion alongside her dad, Sanders largely focused on her past work that led to her serving as the White House press secretary for Trump from 2017 until 2019 — a tenure defined by her fierce loyalty to the president, frequent sparring with journalists at press briefings, and criticism of her approach to the job.

“(Trump) had seen me on a couple of interviews, and he says, ‘This is what you're meant to do. This is what you need to be doing. I don't want you to do anything else for my campaign,’” Sanders recalled. “So, my role changed overnight, and I started doing more and more TV interviews and press. Nine months later, he won the election.”

“Within 30 days, my family was selling our house and moving into a home we’d never seen before in northern Virginia, and I started as the principal deputy press secretary under Sean Spicer, and I filled in for him one day, and about five days later, I was the White House secretary,” she added, with some laughs from the crowd.

Huckabee, who supported Trump after dropping out of the 2016 presidential race, said he initially thought a governor would best as the Republican nominee to run against Hillary Clinton that year, but he came to view Trump as the best option.

“When I got out of the race, I endorsed Donald Trump, and people thought, ‘Really? Donald Trump, he's no evangelical, and you are,’ and I said, ‘I'm not electing him to be my pastor,’” Huckabee said. 

“Everywhere we went in those early states — Iowa, New Hampshire — nobody cared about problem solving. They were so angry, and there was a seething rage of the country, and all they wanted was someone who would burn the whole thing down, and I realized, that's not who I am,” he added. 

“I'm a builder, not a burner, and so, it made sense to me that Donald Trump was the kind of guy who almost would enjoy taking a match and a can of gasoline and blowing the whole thing up — but in a good way,” Huckabee said, to some laughs and applause from the audience. 

Huckabee, Sanders push back against notion that country is ‘inherently evil’

The father-daughter duo, who traded off speaking duties during the event, also pushed back against criticisms of the United States, tapping into ongoing national discussions about systemic racism.

Huckabee, who has hosted controversial politicians such as far-right U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert on his talk show, compared America today to the country in the turbulent era of the 1960s.

“There was one fundamental difference between the divisive politics of the '60s and what we're seeing today, and that is that during the '60s there were dissidents who hated America and wanted to destroy the country, but none of them were getting elected to Congress,” Huckabee said, adding “we’ve got to fight back hard on this nonsense that our country is inherently evil.”

“This isn’t a Democrat-Republican war,” Huckabee said. “We're really at a place where we are deciding whether we're going to be a nation that embraces good or embraces evil, and forgive me if that offends you. I'm not intentionally trying to make it one side is good and the other is evil.”

Sanders struck a slightly different tone, stating the United States is “certainly not a perfect country by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn't mean we aren't a good country, made up of good people who have fought to do good and right in the world.”

“One of the big battles that we have going on right now, we have to be willing to stand up and talk about and stand strong in our belief that the United States, at our core, is good,” Sanders said. “Our country is at a true crossroads, and we're at a place where we have to decide which road we're going to go down.”

Neither of the two discussed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol during their discussion before the crowd of more than 100 people. However, in a brief interview with The Desert Sun, Huckabee said he wasn't aware of any conservative politicians who think the events of that day weren't wrong.

Huckabee also noted his view that what happened that day "wasn't an insurrection," describing that as a "made-up term." He also questioned whether the events of that day were any worse than anti-police brutality protests in summer 2020 that turned violent. 

"Crime is wrong, it doesn't matter who conducted it," Huckabee said, adding there must be "equal application of the law."  

Sanders did not explicitly discuss Jan. 6, but said she believes it's important to "show up to the table not already assuming the worse about the other side."

"I think you see that more often probably in state-level government, than you do on the national side," Sanders said. 

Tuesday’s discussion will be followed by a lecture from Jon Meacham, a presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, on Feb. 24, as well as Ron Howard, an Academy Award-winning director, and his brother Clint Howard, a veteran film actor, on March 14. 

Two conservation photographers and co-founders of the ocean-focused nonprofit Sea Legacy, Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen, were initially scheduled to kick off the series in late January, but their talk was rescheduled to March 30.

Tom Coulter covers politics and can be reached at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com.