Gov. Mike Pence “is sticking with Donald Trump in public, but in private he is holding his options open, according to sources close to him,” the Indianapolis Star reports.
Pence is weighing the “long-term best interest of the Republican Party,” the source said. “Everything is on the table, but the assumption is that they will plan to stay in the saddle with Trump if he performs halfway well tonight.”
Gov. Mike Pence “will no longer be attending a Saturday campaign event in Wisconsin with House Speaker Paul Ryan,” Politico reports.
“Donald Trump was slated to attend the event but was dropped Friday evening after a leaked tape revealed the GOP nominee making crude comments about sexually harassing women… A top Pence advisor says Pence was not disinvited but decided not to go of his own accord.”
Pence told CNN in a statement that he cannot defend Trump’s remarks.
A source close to Trump campaign tells the Washington Post that Pence and his team are “absolutely apoplectic,” “melting down” and “inconsolable.”
“Mike Pence took the stage here just over an hour after a tape emerged of Donald Trump crudely bragging about sexually harassing women and pretended as though no such tape existed,” Politico reports.
“And then, confronted by multiple reporters on the rope line after the speech, he simply ignored repeated questions about his reaction to the tape.”
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Gov. Mike Pence said he is not pushing Donald Trump to follow his lead in this weekend’s debate but instead wants the Manhattan billionaire to “be himself,” Politico reports.
Said Pence: “I’d encourage Donald Trump to do what he did in his first debate and that is be himself. Speak from his mind and speak from his heart and I know he’s going to do that.”
“Senator, you’ve whipped out that Mexican thing again.”
— Gov. Mike Pence, quoted by the New York Times in last night’s vice presidential debate.
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CNN reported that a source close to Donald Trump notes that the reviews that Gov. Mike Pence did better in his debate “won’t go over well with Trump.”
John Harwood quotes a Trump adviser after Pence passed up opportunities to defend the top of the ticket: “Pence won overall, but lost with Trump”
The vice presidential debate was pretty much a mess.
Moderator Elaine Quijano had no control over the candidates and raced through topics as if the goal was to cover everything possible in just 90 minutes. She robotically read through her list of questions but seemed to disregard the answers.
Neither Tim Kaine or Mike Pence came off very well either. They didn’t answer questions. They tried and failed with canned attack lines. They were disrespectful of the weak attempts by the moderator to keep them on topic. They both talked over each other so much that it was annoying to almost everyone watching.
Pence had a much tougher job at the outset. After Donald Trump’s disastrous debate performance last week, Pence needed to do something to reverse the momentum. He didn’t do it. Aside from brushing aside what Trump has said, it’s not clear what his strategy was. On some issues, like Russia and Syria, Pence actually disagreed with Trump.
All Kaine needed to do was make the debate about Donald Trump but he couldn’t do it either. He came off as nervous and overly rehearsed. He didn’t effectively call out Pence for denying basic facts about Trump.
If you scored the debate on style, Pence probably won narrowly. He looked into the camera and came off as the calmer of the two. I suspect most instant polls will find Pence the winner.
However, Kaine was a much better running mate. He defended the nominee at the top of his ticket. Pence wasn’t willing to do it.
After watching the debate, it’s clear that Kaine is running for vice president in 2016. But Pence sounded more like he’s running for president in 2020.
Ezra Klein: “Trump isn’t even using Pence as a prime surrogate: He’s sending out sycophants like Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich — the guys who have his back and will deliver even his strangest self-justifications with a smile.”
“Pence’s purpose on the ticket is as Trump’s ambassador to the Republican Party. It’s Pence who keeps GOP heavyweights like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell hopeful that a Trump win might lead to a conservative presidency. But Pence’s role in the Trump campaign is that of a salesman, not a strategist or close adviser — no one believes Trump is relying on the genial, generic Midwestern conservative for guidance.”
First Read: “We don’t envy the task in front of Republican Mike Pence in tonight’s vice-presidential debate. Not only does he have to defend the controversies from Donald Trump’s brutal week (the taxes, Alicia Machado, the 3:00 am tweetstorm), but he also has to defend Trump on issues where the two men are at odds. Indeed, before Pence became Trump’s running mate, he:
“Folks, those aren’t ordinary campaign issues; they are central to Trump’s candidacy. What’s more, Pence has often been running a parallel campaign to Trump’s.”
What Tim Kaine must do: “Every time that Pence will want to talk about traditional issues, Kaine will have to turn the conversation back to Trump.”
Gov. Mike Pence told ABC News that his role model for the number two spot is the last Republican to hold the job — Dick Cheney.
Said Pence: “I frankly hold Dick Cheney in really high regard in his role as vice president and as an American.”
Pence said that, like Cheney, he hoped to be “a very active vice president.”
Gov. Mike Pence declined to endorse Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) or Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) in their re-election bids while talking to reporters en route to a campaign stop in Virginia, NBC News reports.
Said Pence: “I look forward to supporting Republican candidates in the days and weeks ahead all over the country, and so does Donald Trump. But the stakes in this election are so high. To restore our country and home and abroad, we need new leadership, and I’m looking forward to standing should to shoulder with Donald Trump to drive that new leadership forward.”
Pence also said that he sees “eye to eye” with Donald Trump on their views of the Khan family, the current iteration of the Muslim ban and Russia’s alleged role in the hacking of DNC emails.
Gov. Mike Pence tried to “pat down the flame that has been burning between Donald Trump and the Khan family,” Politico reports.
Said Pence: “Donald Trump and I believe that Captain Humayun Khan is an American hero and his family, like all Gold Star families, should be cherished by every American. Captain Khan gave his life to defend our country in the global war on terror.”
David Brooks: “The Sanders people have 90 percent of the Democratic Party’s passion and 95 percent of the ideas. Most Sanders people are kind- and open-hearted, but there is a core that is corrupted by moral preening, an uncompromising absolutism and a paranoid unwillingness to play by the rules of civic life.”
“But the extremist fringe that threatens to take over the Democratic Party seems less menacing than the lunatic fringe that has already taken over the Republican one.”
“This week I left the arena here each night burning with indignation at Mike Pence. I almost don’t blame Trump. He is a morally untethered, spiritually vacuous man who appears haunted by multiple personality disorders. It is the ‘sane’ and ‘reasonable’ Republicans who deserve the shame — the ones who stood silently by, or worse, while Donald Trump gave away their party’s sacred inheritance.”
“I don’t think name calling has any place in public life, and I thought that was unfortunate that the president of the United States would use a term like that, let alone laced into a sentence like that.”
— Gov. Mike Pence, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, objecting to President Obama calling Donald Trump a “demagogue.”
First Read: “Now that the Republican convention has stabilized a bit after a very rocky start, tonight’s attention turns to VP running mate Mike Pence. Thanks to a less-than-typical VP rollout, Pence probably has a more challenging task to sell himself — and Trump — to the American public in his speech tonight than his predecessors did in 2008 or 2012.”
“Neither Sarah Palin nor Paul Ryan were overshadowed the way Trump overshadowed Pence when he formally unveiled him, speaking for 29 minutes before Pence got his chance to talk. Neither Palin nor Ryan got in 900 words in the first joint-ticket TV interview — compared with the presidential nominee’s 2,160 words — in what happened during Sunday’s Trump-Pence interview on “60 Minutes.” And neither Palin nor Ryan had to experience reports that the presidential nominee had immediate doubts he was making the right pick.”
Washington Post: “For their first lengthy public interaction, Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence opted for a sit-down interview with 60 Minutes. Trump did most of the talking during the 21-minute segment that aired on Sunday night, while Pence sat beside him, gazing approvingly and allowing Trump to answer nearly all of the questions, even those directed at him.”
“By the end, Trump had uttered more than 2,160 words while Pence’s word count clocked in around 900. When Pence did get the chance to speak, Trump would often cut him off with a correction or answer of his own.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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