Tag: Vice President Pence

Pence’s alternative pandemic world

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Vice President Mike Pence described a world in which he and President Trump led Americans’ heroic effort to defeat the coronavirus during last night’s vice presidential debate. The problem is, he described a world that doesn’t exist.

Why it matters: The coronavirus is very much not in control in the U.S., and America’s failed response begins with the individual actions of the president and the vice president themselves.

  • Instead of defending the administration’s decisions and behaviors, Pence acted as if they never happened.

What Pence said: Trump’s decision to shut down travel from China “bought us invaluable time to stand up the greatest national mobilization since World War II, and I believe it saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.”

  • Reality check: The administration botched the initial response to the pandemic, producing a faulty diagnostic test and failing to stop the virus from taking hold across the U.S.
  • Despite the travel ban, the virus clearly found its way into the country. Continue reading.

Mike Pence hopes four years of subservience to Trump will lift his political future

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Like many who served in Congress alongside the late John Lewis, then-Rep. Mike Pence made a pilgrimage to Selma, Ala., in 2010 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.” He marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge just a few feet from Lewis as they retraced the historic route, and posed for a photo at the foot of the span — the Indiana Republican in crisp gray and the Georgia Democrat in somber black, their shoulders touching.

But when Lewis died last month of pancreatic cancer at 80, Pence, now vice president, held off on issuing a public comment on the civil rights hero’s passing. President Trump was no fan of the congressman and openly complained about Lewis’s refusal to attend his inauguration. Only after the White House distributed a perfunctory proclamation on the death in Trump’s name did Pence feel comfortable releasing a statement of his own, memorializing Lewis as not just an “icon” but also “a colleague and a friend.”

That hesitation — deferring to Trump for cues, and then following his lead — was classic Pence. It exemplified the well-honed subservience of a man who once governed his home state of Indiana but who as vice president has transformed himself into a loyal student and servant of Trump — binding his political ambitions to a mercurial and capricious boss now trailing in polls with just over two months to go until Election Day. Continue reading.

Pence says coronavirus more lethal than flu, predicts ‘thousands of more cases’

The Hill logoVice President Pence on Thursday confirmed that the coronavirus is more lethal than the flu and predicted that the United States can expect “thousands of more cases.”

NBC News’s Savannah Guthrie asked Pence during an appearance on “Today” to confirm that “this is much more lethal than the seasonal flu.”

“It is, Savannah,” Pence responded. Continue reading.

China Fires Back at Pence, Says U.S. Should Get House in Order

China fired back at Vice President Mike Pence’s criticism on human rights, calling his speech “lies” and chiding him for ignoring U.S. problems like racism and wealth disparity.

Pence on Thursday gave a long-anticipated speech in which he criticized China’s actions against protesters in Hong Kong while calling for greater engagement between the world’s two biggest economies. He said the U.S. stands with demonstrators in Hong Kong and accused Beijing of curtailing the rights and liberties of the city’s residents.

Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, blasted Pence’s “arrogance” and said no force would stop the country’s progress. She accused him of seeking “to disrupt China’s unity or internal stability” and called Hong Kong, Taiwan and the far west region of Xinjiang “internal affairs.”

View the complete October 25 article by Carolynn Look and Jenny Leonard on the Bloomberg News website here.

Pence tells House committees he will not cooperate in impeachment inquiry

Axios logoThe counsel for Vice President Mike Pence sent a letter to the chairmen of the House committees investigating President Trump and Ukraine on Tuesday informing them that he will not cooperate with a request for documents in their “self-proclaimed” impeachment inquiry.

Why it matters: This is in line with the White House’s current stance of blanket noncooperation, which has prompted the House chairmen conducting the investigation to warn that defiance could be used as evidence of obstruction in a future article of impeachment. Some have speculated that Speaker Nancy Pelosi could call the White House’s bluff and announce a full House vote authorizing the impeachment inquiry, daring the administration to continue to defy subpoenas and document requests.

Read the letter:

Dear Chairmen:

The Office of the Vice President has received the Committees’ Letter to the Vice President, dated October 4, 2019, which requests a wide-ranging scope of documents, some of which are clearly not vice-presidential records, pursuant to a self-proclaimed “impeachment inquiry.” As noted in the October 8, 2019 letter from the White House Counsel to each of you and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the purported “impeachment inquiry” has been designed and implemented in a manner that calls into question your commitment to fundamental fairness and due process rights.

View the complete October 15 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

Pence, Pompeo, Barr and Mulvaney could be subpoenaed by House Dems — and also be impeached: Former GOP rep

AlterNet logoVice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Bill Barr, and Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney all may be subpoenaed by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, says ex-Republican Congressman David Jolly.

“This has been methodical and is building up, I think, to subpoenaing Mike Pompeo, possibly the Vice President of the United States, Mick Mulvaney, and Bill Barr, because this touches them,” Jolly said Tuesday morning on MSNBC.

“And so all questions center on who knew what, when,” he added, speaking about Trump’s Ukraine extortion scandal, “who was in the room when these conversations took place.”

View the complete October 15 aritcle by David Badash from the New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

‘Vetting disaster’: Here are the details behind the mind-blowing connection between a former Pence security advisor and an admitted Russian agent

AlterNet logoMSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has had much to say this week about Republicans and the vetting process. And having chastised the GOP over domestic violence allegations involving former Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Maddow turned her attention to Vice President Mike Pence and another “vetting disaster” on Wednesday night — taking him to taskfor failing to vet his former national security advisor, Andrea L. Thompson (now serving as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs). Maddow noted that Thompson has had close relationships with admitted Russia agent Maria Butina as well as with Butina’s boyfriend, veteran GOP activist Paul Erickson — and that Thompson’s connection to Butina and Erickson was detailed by the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin in a June 19 report.

“The Marina Butina story is just nuts,” Maddow asserted, describing Butina’s connection to Russian government officials and her efforts to infiltrate and influence the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Republican Party in favor of Russia. Maddow, describing Rogin’s Post report, noted that in June 2017, Butina “turned up at the wedding of Mike Pence’s national advisor” — and Erickson “was officiating the wedding.” Continue reading “‘Vetting disaster’: Here are the details behind the mind-blowing connection between a former Pence security advisor and an admitted Russian agent”

Two speeches, two audiences, same Pence pitch to blue-collar voters

Gallup: With big base turnout, approval below 50 percent in key states ‘may be enough’

Vice President Mike Pence hit many of the same notes Tuesday and Wednesday, though his speeches were calibrated for different audiences: manufacturing bigwigs one day and Latino business honchos the next. Both days he had a message for a voting bloc key to deciding if he and President Donald Trump win a second term.

Pence spoke Wednesday to the Latino Coalition’s annual legislative summit at the Park Hyatt hotel in Washington, driving home the need for “a legal immigration system that works, that’s built on opportunity for all and on merit — and that all begins with border security.” He also spoke about the administration’s contention that Latino unemployment rates are at an all-time low, while calling Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro “a dictator with no legitimate claim to power.”

“Nicolas Maduro must go,” Pence said to applause in his signature staccato cadence, in which each word is emphasized.

View the complete March 6 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Pence Claims Credit For Defeating ISIS On Same Day ISIS Kills U.S. Troops

Yesterday, on the same day ISIS claimed credit for an attack that killed U.S. troops in Syria, Pence once again claimed the Trump administration had defeated ISIS. This administration’s distortion of reality is dangerous.

Today, ISIS claimed credit for an attack that killed U.S. troops in Syria.

CNN: “ISIS has claimed responsibility for a deadly explosion that killed US service members in the Syrian city of Manbij on Wednesday.”

Hours later, Pence once again claimed credit for defeating ISIS.

Pence: “The caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated.”

Despite being told by military leaders on the ground in Syria that ISIS was not entirely defeated, Trump and his administration continues to lie to the American people.

CNN: “During his surprise visit to Iraq on December 26, Trump was warned by military commanders that — despite his claims — ISIS was not entirely defeated in Syria.”

That was a VP (very poor) commentary.

Vice President Mike Pence wrote a love letter to President Donald Trump and his party that graced the Opinion Exchange page of the Star Tribune on March 28 (“Our tax, energy and trade policies are working for Minnesotans”). The article was misleading in a variety of ways, but particularly so for low-information voters.

Here’s Pence describing how Trump’s policies are “working for Minnesotans”: Continue reading “That was a VP (very poor) commentary.”