Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:12 pm
Donald Trump’s own running mate just made his birther problem one hundred times worse as Gov. Mike Pence did a nightmare of an interview with ABC’s This Week.
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Transcript via ABC’s This Week:
PENCE: What I will tell you, Martha — look, as I travel across this country, I say this very sincerely and very respectfully to you, this is not what the American people are talking about. Donald Trump put this issue to an end yesterday in Washington, D.C. He essentially said…
RADDATZ: Why did it take him so long to put it an end? It’s not over.
PENCE: Throughout this campaign, he hasn’t been talking about it. He’s been talking about the need to have a stronger America at home and abroad.
I understand why Hillary Clinton and many of her defenders in the national media want to distract attention from her dishonesty and her disastrous record on the foreign stage and the fact that she wants to simply continued the failed policies of this administration that have run our economy literally into a ditch. But that’s not working.
I promise you, the American people see through all of this. And I think that’s why Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the United States.
RADDATZ: Governor Pence, I talked voters as well. In fact, just yesterday. And they talked about the birther issue, they believe fueled in part by what Donald Trump has said that President Obama was born outside the U.S. This fuels those conspiracy theories.
Do you think he should have promoted this birther issue for all these years? Was he wrong to do this?
PENCE: Our campaign just really isn’t focused on the past, Martha, and it really…
RADDATZ: Governor Pence, you said yourself Hillary Clinton is at fault. That’s going forward, that’s not just the past. He said Friday that Hillary Clinton and her campaign were at fault for this birther movement as well. And you just said it yourself,
What is the proof because we can’t find any. And fact-checkers have checked into that, that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement.
PENCE: Well, I just would refer you to news reports with the McClatchy News Service and reports of people in your industry, Martha, that…
RADDATZ: The reports of people in my industry say there’s no proof they can find that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with it.
Mike Pence’s appearance on ABC’s This Week was so bad that it is hard to believe that this is the person that the Republican Party chose to bring stability and credibility to the Trump ticket.
It is almost as if Pence was trying to feed the birther story and keep it going with his answers. The VP nominee told numerous lies and dodged repeated questions about Trump’s birtherism. The Trump campaign can’t wall off parts of the candidate’s past, and declare matters closed.
The media appears to have finally caught on to the fact that candidates who lie to press if elected become presidents and vice presidents who lie to the press and the American people.
Pence is caught in Trump’s birtherism, and his bumbling attempts to escape his boss’s past illustrate the fact that Donald Trump didn’t choose a partner to be on the ticket. When Trump chose Pence, he got himself a stooge in a suit who isn’t talented enough to defend Trump’s lies.
Mike Pence just made sure that the birther question will continue to follow Donald Trump.
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
