Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:08 pm
Donald Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence, appeared to distance himself the Republican nominee on numerous issues during a Meet The Press interview that was a complete disaster.
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Transcript via Meet The Press:
CHUCK TODD:
Appropriate for Roger Ailes to be involved?
GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE:
I trust Donald Trump’s judgment to assemble around this team a group that’s going to help us move forward and be successful and win. And come on, I mean Steve Bannon has denied all of those allegations. And–
CHUCK TODD:
Well, some of them are in court records.
GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE:
And–
CHUCK TODD:
And look, and I know divorces are divorces. I’m not going to– but it’s troubling allegations. People are going to look at that and say, “All right, Steve Bannon, then you see all these allegations against Roger Ailes, it just feels as if there’s– does he ignore troubling allegations against people that work for him?”
GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE:
I trust Donald Trump to assemble a team around him in this campaign, as he has and will continue to. You’ll continue to see people added to this campaign. What’s really remarkable for me, having joined this campaign just six weeks ago, is the fact that this campaign has always been propelled by a movement of the American people. I mean where in Hillary Clinton, there’s a thousand employees and experts and pollsters. And frankly, there were people in the Republican primary who had significant apparatus, as well.
Mike Pence couldn’t have run away from Trump any faster if his hair was on fire.
Pence also struggled to describe Trump’s immigration plan, and he got busted by Chuck Todd for sealing his own congressional records while calling for transparency with Clinton’s emails.
While Mike Pence is carrying the Trump anchor around his neck, it is also clear that Gov. Pence is the one who made the decision to accept Trump’s offer to be on the ticket.
Pence doesn’t get to distance himself from Trump’s decision to staff his campaign with alleged wife beaters and sexual harassers. That’s not the way the deal works. Pence is on the ticket, so he is also responsible for the campaign.
Gov. Pence has his own national ambitions, but it speaks volumes about the state of the Trump campaign when the candidate for vice president appears to be distancing himself and plotting his escape.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
