Why Did Sarah Sanders Leave the White House? Her Reasoning for Stepping Down as Press Secretary

From July 26, 2017, to July 1, 2019, Sarah Huckabee Sanders served as the White House Press Secretary under President Donald Trump. After resigning, Sarah became the Governor of Arkansas, inaugurated on Jan. 10, 2023. She is the first woman and the youngest person to hold this office in the state's history, according to her state bio.

For many people, though, Sanders’s resignation came as something of a surprise. Part of that is because of the way the news of her resignation was initially spread via a tweet from Trump rather than an announcement from Sanders herself. So, why did Sarah Huckabee Sanders resign as the White House press secretary?

Although Sanders officially held the role of press secretary for roughly two years, one could argue that by the end of her tenure, she wasn’t exactly acting the part, at least as far as press briefings were concerned. By the end of her press secretary career, the White House had simply stopped holding regular formal press briefings. In fact, after a briefing Sanders held in March of 2019, there were zero briefings until Kayleigh McEnany finally held one in May 2020, breaking the streak.

Since Sanders herself didn’t announce her resignation, and since there were no briefings on the topic, the reasons for Sanders stepping down from her position were never really laid out for the American public. Trump simply announced in a tweet on June 13, 2019 that the “wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders” would be leaving her position at the end of the month and returning to her home state of Arkansas.

Given that she wasn’t fired, wasn’t given one of Trump’s infamous Twitter nicknames, and spoke at a July 2024 Republican convention attended by Trump himself, there doesn't appear to be any bad blood between Sanders and Trump.

While Sarah hasn't explicitly stated why she left the White House, she did mention during a June 2019 press event that she is a mom and would be spending more time with her "three amazing kids" following her departure.

Since leaving her role as press secretary, Sanders has kept herself quite busy with her family and political roles.

In September 2019, Sanders became a correspondent for Fox News, returning to television screens across America. By November 2019, she began hinting to reporters that she was considering a bid for governor of Arkansas, stating, "There are two types of people who run for office. People that are called and people that just want to be a senator or governor. I feel like I’ve been called.”

Then, on January 10, 2023, Sarah was inaugurated as the 47th governor of Arkansas. She overhauled the state's education system, providing higher pay for teachers. She also focused on reforming public safety by getting repeat offenders off the streets. These days, Sarah continues to show her support for former President Donald Trump, with her most recent appearance at a July 2024 Republican National Convention meeting.