Watch Sarah Sanders go toe-to-toe with ABC's Jon Karl about the White House's shifting Comey story

Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
(Image credit: Screenshot/CNN via Twitter)

It apparently doesn't take White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to make a daily press briefing tense. On Thursday, ABC's Jonathan Karl backed Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders into a corner by raising questions about the incorrect information she was feeding the press.

"I asked you directly yesterday if the president had already decided to fire James Comey when he met with the deputy attorney general and the attorney general, and you said no," Karl said. "Now we learn from the president directly that he had already decided to fire James Comey [before the meeting]. So why were so many people giving answers that just weren't correct? Were you guys in the dark?"

Sanders replied, "I hadn't had a chance to have a conversation directly with the president to say — I'd had several conversations with him, but I didn't ask that question directly."

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"Was the vice president in the dark too?" Karl pressed.

"Nobody was in the dark, Jonathan," Sanders snapped. "You want to create this false narrative. If we want to talk about contradicting statements and people that were maybe in the dark, let's talk about the Democrats. Let's read a few of them. You want to talk about them? Here's what Democrats said not long ago about Comey."

Sanders then proceeded to read several statements from Democrats criticizing Comey. Watch the tussle — and Sanders' questionable understanding of what "in the dark" means — below. Jeva Lange

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.