Keeping one eye on her political future and the other on a yummy bowl of grits, the GOP’s poster child for nepotism Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has given up trying to justify a $19,000 expenditure for a wooden podium she took on a brief European tour, refusing to use the piece in press conferences because, she claims, it would distract from the culture war issues she’s addressing while standing behind it.

KTHV CBS-11 in Little Rock reports that an indignant Sanders chided reporters for pursuing a news story about excessive waste in her Administration after being asked why she wasn’t using the podium during press conferences.  “While we are focused on things that actually impact our state and impact Arkansas, the media wants to spend all of their time focused on things that frankly don’t,” Sanders said.  The important issue she was addressing at that specific press briefing was Chinese ownership of land in Arkansas, a major issue for citizens of a state that ranks 43rd in education, 47th in health care and 40th in domestic violence.

While the cost of the podium–which Sanders claims was needed for a short European “trade mission” she and a number of allies took to Europe, with some watchdogs concerned the cost was cover to pay travel expenses for Sanders’ allies–was reimbursed by the state Republican Party after the excessive cost of the piece was disclosed, critics have slammed Sanders for the excessive cost for a podium which has nearly identical models on Amazon available for under $900.