Tensions between former President Donald Trump and his former press secretary, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, have mounted recently because, despite her team informing Trump's campaign that she would endorse him in the 2024 presidential election after the end of her first legislative session in May, Sanders has yet to do so, two sources familiar with the situation told Axios.
Sanders is one of several Republicans who have chosen to remain neutral ahead of the 2024 Republican primary. Her neutrality is complicated, however, because of her former role as the voice of the GOP frontrunner's administration. Due to their working relationship — and the fact that Trump endorsed her on the first day of her gubernatorial campaign in 2021 — Trump reportedly holds the Arkansas governor to a different standard than other GOP leaders. "You should always dance with the person who brought you," an unnamed Trump ally said, describing the feeling. The New York Times first reported in March that Trump had asked Sanders for an endorsement, and she declined. Trump, however, vehemently denied the report on Truth Social, writing that he never asked her for an endorsement while adding that "nobody has done more for her than I have."
Sanders has also built a relationship with Trump's primary rival Gov. Ron DeSantis, attending the Florida Republican's retreat for prominent donors last year and hiring his senior chancellor of the state's Department of Education to be her secretary of education in Arkansas. She's also gotten close with DeSantis' wife, Casey, after their experience's with cancer in recent years. Trump and DeSantis' campaigns declined Axios' requests for comment.
