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One week after the Murphy Brown revival introduced fans to “Hilary Clinton,” the CBS sitcom took aim at the White House with an episode titled “I (Don’t) Heart Huckabee.” As the title suggests, the episode featured a “cameo” from White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who appeared in real-life clips and through a body double. After sneaking into the daily press briefing in a disguise (she was banned from the White House years ago), Murphy (Candice Bergen) cornered Sanders and levied one very important question at her: “Why do you lie?”
In the roughly two-minute scene, Murphy interrupted another reporter’s question and stood to address Sanders. “I don’t know how you got in here, but it’s inappropriate,” said Sanders. “If you really want to talk about what’s inappropriate, how about the way you do your job?” fired back Murphy. Citing the White House’s border separation policy, the ever-changing story about the Trump Tower meeting, and Muller’s Russia investigation, Murphy said, “It all comes down to the same thing. So here’s my question: why do you lie?” Murphy’s brazen question shocked everyone, but no one was more embarrassed than her son Avery (Jake McDorman), who works for the conservative Wolf Network.
Murphy then tried to rally the press corps to leave the briefing. “The most basic principle of journalistic integrity, to report the facts, is totally out of reach. If we can’t get to the truth, why are we even here?” Murphy asked her colleagues. Unsurprisingly, her rousing speech inspired no one, and Sanders smiled smugly at the seated press corps as Murphy looked on in shock.
So, how did Murphy Brown create that surprise Sarah Huckabee Sanders “cameo?” In an in-depth interview with Vulture, creator Diane English revealed that translating Sanders’ real-life persona onto the screen “took a village.” Said English:
We dedicated one of our writer’s assistants to pulling every press conference with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We found five of them where she was wearing the same dress and her hair was the same, so we had a lot of choices for facial expressions and words. That took several weeks. Then you purchase the footage that you want and edit it into the show. We hired a voice double, auditioned body doubles, and our wardrobe people had to make the dress as close as possible.
For the body double, producers picked “somebody who looked like [Sanders’] size and her height, and had shoulder hair,” English explained. Rachel Butera, the actress who recently came under fire for making fun of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s voice during her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, played Sanders’ voice double.
Watch Sanders’ Murphy Brown “cameo” in the clip above.
