President Donald Trump's comments Tuesday about Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand were "in no way sexist" — and they would be considered so "only if your mind is in the gutter," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.
"I think only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way," Sanders told reporters at the daily briefing when asked whether the president should apologize for his tweet about the New York Democrat. "So, no."
President Trump slammed Gillibrand, who called for his resignation Monday after several women renewed their accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior, on Twitter as a politician who has approached him "begging" for contributions and who would "do anything" to get them.
Democrats accused Trump of making unsavory insinuations.
Gillibrand also hit back immediately, calling Trump's comment a "sexist smear" and vowing that "I will not be silenced on this issue.
"Neither will the women who stood up to the president yesterday," she said.
Sanders denied such inferences, telling reporters that that Trump has used such terms as he campaigned to "drain the swamp" in Washington during the election.
"If you look back at past comments this president has made, he's used that same terminology many times in reference to men and women of both parties," she said.
"There is no way that this is sexist at all.
"This is simply talking about a system that we have said that is broken in which special interests control our government.
"I don't think that there is probably many people that are more controlled by political contributions than the senator that the president referenced.
"The system is clearly broken," Sanders added. "It's clearly rigged for special interests.
"And this president is someone that can't be bought — and it's one of the reasons he's president today."
Regarding Monday's renewed assault allegations, Sanders called them "false and fabricated" and said that "the president has answered these questions.
"He has spoken to these accusations."
In response to calls from as more than 100 Democrats for a probe into the new allegations, the press secretary said that "if Congress wants to spend time investigating things they should probably focus on some of the issues the people American people would like them to investigate, like how to secure our borders and how to defeat ISIS and pass tax reform that impacts them."
Regarding the Russia investigation, Sanders told reporters that she had not asked the president whether he agreed with calls Tuesday from one of his private attorneys, Jay Sekulow, for another special counsel in light of perceived bias by Robert Mueller's investigators.
"I know he has great concern about some of the conduct that's taking place and something that we certainly would like to see looked," she said.
However, President Trump continues to have confidence in the FBI and its director, Christopher Wray.
"The president has confidence in Director Wray and his agency to clean up some of the mess left behind from his predecessor," Sanders said, "and in the rank-and-file members of the FBI."
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