Bob Woodward writes in his new book that Vice President Mike Pence’s “default mode is to not do anything that would prompt Trump to tweet about him or call him an idiot,” USA Today reports.
“Pence appears to have done his best to stay out of Woodward’s book. Pence was also largely absent from Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
Said Woodward: “Little leaked out of the Pence side of the White House.”
Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News that it was “un-American” for an anonymous author to write a New York Times op-ed last week critical of President Trump and vowed that he would take a lie-detector test to prove he did not write it.
Said Pence: “I would agree to take it in a heartbeat and would submit to any review the administration wanted to do.”
Vice President Mike Pence denied to CBS News being a part of discussions to invoke the 25th Amendment, removing President Trump from office.
Vice President Mike Pence turned to the Bible when asked recently what he makes of a new critical biography, The Shadow President, that calls him a “Christian supremacist,” USA Today reports.
Said Pence: “The Bible says count it all joy when you endure trials of many kinds. Any time I’m criticized for my belief in Jesus Christ, I just breath a prayer of praise.”
Our recent podcast episode with the authors of the book is very good.
Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner, authors of The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence, join Chris Riback for a discussion on the man next in line to be President of the United States should something happen to President Trump.
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Vice President Mike Pence “once argued the president of the United States should be held to the highest moral standards to determine whether he should resign or be removed from office,” CNN reports.
“Pence made the argument in two columns in the late 1990s, where he wrote that then-President Bill Clinton’s admission of an affair with a White House intern and prior lies to the public about the matter, possibly under oath, meant Clinton should be removed from office.”
“Yet Pence also moved beyond the specifics of the Clinton case: He made a far-reaching argument about the importance of morality and integrity to the office of the presidency.”
“Vice President Pence has transformed his office into a new entry point for lobbyists seeking to influence the Trump administration across federal agencies,” the Washington Post reports.
“About twice as many companies and other interests hired lobbyists to contact the vice president’s office in Pence’s first year than in any single year during the tenures of Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Richard B. Cheney, filings show.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “said months of intense negotiations between his country, the United States and Mexico imploded Tuesday when Vice President Pence demanded that any deal expire automatically in five years,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trudeau said he was prepared to travel to Washington this week to try to finalize a rework of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but Pence, in the phone call, said a meeting would occur only if the ‘sunset’ provision was agreed to in advance.”
Matt Bai: “There’s no question that Pence is building his own political operation, separate from Trump’s… Pence is definitely positioning himself for an opening, which is exactly why he goes off at Cabinet meetings about how blessed he is just to breathe the same air as Trump. He says those things because the only way he can privately maneuver to consolidate power is to publicly venerate the boss at the same time.”
“This is politics 101… Except here’s the problem for Pence: Close as he is to the presidency, his chances of ever getting the job fall somewhere between remote and imaginary.”
“Corey Lewandowski, who helped Donald Trump win the Republican nomination, is getting back in the campaign game,” Fox News reports.
“He is joining Vice President Pence’s political action committee, which will enable him to travel with the VP and puts him firmly back in the president’s 2020 reelection orbit.”
New York Times: “While Mr. Trump remains an overpowering personality in Republican politics, he is mostly uninterested in the mechanics of managing a political party. His team of advisers is riven with personal divisions and the White House has not yet crafted a strategy for the midterms. So Mr. Trump’s supremely disciplined running mate has stepped into the void.”
“Republican officials now see Mr. Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president’s instincts lean in another direction. Even as he laces his public remarks with praise for the president, Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group of Mr. Trump’s fierce loyalists who fear they are forging a separate power base.”
Vice President Mike Pence says it’s time for special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, the AP reports.
Said Pence: “In the interests of the country, I think it’s time to wrap it up.”
George Will: “Donald Trump, with his feral cunning, knew. The oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive public figure. And Pence, who has reached this pinnacle by dethroning his benefactor, is augmenting the public stock of useful knowledge. Because his is the authentic voice of today’s lickspittle Republican Party, he clarifies this year’s elections: Vote Republican to ratify groveling as governing.”
“There will be negligible legislating by the next Congress, so ballots cast this November will be most important as validations or repudiations of the harmonizing voices of Trump, Pence, Arpaio and the like. Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic. Pence is what he has chosen to be, which is horrifying.”
“Vice President Mike Pence’s physician has resigned, the latest fallout from the collapse of Ronny Jackson’s nomination for secretary of Veterans Affairs,” Politico reports.
“Dr. Jennifer Peña, who like Jackson is a military physician detailed to the White House, was among those who detailed claims of professional misconduct against Jackson to senators considering his nomination.”
“Peña claimed in memos that Jackson may have violated Karen Pence’s patient privacy rights by sharing details of a medical incident involving the second lady to chief of staff John Kelly. The memos were first reported by CNN.”
“Vice President Mike Pence’s pick for his national security adviser, Jon Lerner, has withdrawn after his hiring created tensions in the administration,” CNN reports.
“A GOP source close to the administration confirmed that news of Lerner’s hiring by the vice president created some tension within the administration, saying it caused ‘a big damn mess.'”
Vice President Mike Pence “will continue his campaign-style blitz around the country this week as Republicans scramble to stave off what they fear could be a Democratic wave in the 2018 midterm elections,” Politico reports.
“Pence has pledged to be a regular presence on the trail, where he is seen as a popular speaker and gifted fundraiser, without President Trump’s flair for controversy.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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