Former ABC News reporter and anchor Sam Donaldson slammed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ antagonistic relationship with the press on Sunday, comparing her work with former president George H.W. Bush’s cordial attitude towards news outlets.

“I think he also had a press secretary in Marlin Fitzwater who did a great job for him,” Donaldson told CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “Marlin would come out to the press room knowing he had to shuck, and jive, and sort of slide around, but he didn’t try to insult reporters. He knew that we knew that he was going to shuck and jive. That was his job.”

“And I wonder if that would work today with Sarah Sanders, if she could come out and say, ‘You know, I’m going to lie to you, but I have to do that. Don’t you understand? It’s nothing personal,'” Donaldson said.

Fitzwater served as press secretary for two presidents, Ronald Reagan and Bush, from 1987 to 1993.

Donaldson said Bush understood both he and journalists had a job to do informing the American people, even though he did not always agree with the coverage of his administration.

“The Washington press corps has not swooned over a president since John F. Kennedy, but in the case of George Herbert Walker Bush I think it was well above the line,” he said, adding, however, that the way history may recall Bush could be “a mixed bag.”

Donaldson also had criticism of Trump’s response to news of Bush’s death Friday at the age of 94 in Houston, Texas.

“President Trump has been gracious from the standpoint of talking about the loss of this man and what have you, and has said he’s a great family man. That’s quite true,” he said. “But President Trump hasn’t managed to say, ‘And a great president too,’ because that would violate Mr. Trump’s feeling about where presidents should be on Mt. Rushmore, I guess.”

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