From the Washington Post:
Tag: Mike Pence
Trump and … er … Pence
The following political cartoon was posted on the National Memo website February 21, 2017:
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The Rudderless Ship of State
The following article by Eliot A. Cohen* was posted on the Atlantic website February 14, 2017:
The departure of Michael Flynn leaves the administration with a feuding crew, and no one at the helm.
There are two theories of the future of President Trump’s foreign policy and the National Security Council. In one, the good ship NSC, like a Nantucket whaler of old, has had a hard shakedown cruise, but is coming to. A couple of misfits have been tossed overboard, and the captain has given up trying to run the ship. He periodically shows up on deck to shake his fist at the moon and order a summary flogging, but for the most part he stays in his cabin emitting strange barks while competent mates and petty officers sail the NSC. It’s not pretty—the ship rolls and lurches alarmingly—but it gets where it needs to go.
This could happen. Trump, overwhelmed by a leadership task far beyond his experience and personality, will focus his efforts on infrastructure projects and the like, and quietly concede the direction of foreign policy to his sober secretaries of state and defense, with a retired general or admiral to reassemble something like an orderly White House process. He is erratic but not stupid: he knows he is in over his head, hates the bad publicity his first few weeks bought him, and has family members nudging him in this direction. Continue reading “The Rudderless Ship of State”
Pence remains above the fray, but is he outside the inner circle?
The following article by Robert Costa and Ashley Parker was posted on the Washington Post website February 14, 2017:
For nearly two full weeks, nobody told Vice President Pence that he had been misled by national security adviser Michael Flynn. Continue reading “Pence remains above the fray, but is he outside the inner circle?”
Pence remains above the fray, but is he outside the inner circle?
The following article by Robert Costa and Ashley Parker was posted on the Washington Post website February 14, 2017:
For nearly two full weeks, nobody told Vice President Pence that he had been misled by national security adviser Michael Flynn.
After privately being assured by Flynn that he had never had any discussions about Russian sanctions with that country’s ambassador, Pence went on TV in mid-January and publicly parroted Flynn’s denial. But on Jan. 26, President Trump and a small group of senior aides learned that the Justice Department had evidence that Flynn had, in fact, discussed sanctions and misled the vice president. Continue reading “Pence remains above the fray, but is he outside the inner circle?”
Trump and Russia: A Timeline
The following article by Corey Ciorciari and Anna Perina was posted on the Center for American Progress Action Fund website February 10, 2017:
President Donald Trump—accompanied by, from the left, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 28, 2017, in the Oval Office.
Recordings of phone conversations by U.S. intelligence agencies show that President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Flynn likely lied when he denied discussing election-related sanctions on Russia with Kremlin officials before Trump’s inauguration.
The intercepts contain disturbing revelations showing a long history of contact between Flynn and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak that began before the election and continued into the transition, with Flynn telling the Russians that Trump would revisit sanctions. Critically, these contacts persisted even after the U.S. government concluded the Kremlin engaged in a covert influence operation to put Trump in the White House. Continue reading “Trump and Russia: A Timeline”
With historic tiebreaker from Pence, DeVos confirmed as education secretary
The following article by Emma Brown as posted on the Washington Post website February 7, 2017:
The Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos as education secretary Tuesday by the narrowest of margins, with Vice President Pence casting a historic tiebreaking vote after senators deadlocked over her fitness for the job.
DeVos now takes the helm of the Education Department with questions about whether and how the polarizing fight over her confirmation will affect her power to advance the Trump administration’s agenda. Continue reading “With historic tiebreaker from Pence, DeVos confirmed as education secretary”
Mike Pence’s awkward — and telling — response to whether the U.S. is ‘morally superior’ to Russia
The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website February 6, 2017:
If you would like to see a man struggle, witness Vice President Pence:
Pence was asked on “Face the Nation” to account for President Trump having likened Vladimir Putin’s alleged killing of political opponents to the United States’. Trump had told Bill O’Reilly: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
CBS’s John Dickerson asked Pence, “Do you agree?” And Pence had to draw a long, pronounced breath. Then, asked four times whether the United States is “morally superior” to Russia, Pence avoided and danced around the question before relenting (kind of):
DICKERSON: Do you think America is morally superior to Russia?
PENCE: What — what you have in this new president is someone who is willing to, and is, in fact, engaging the world, including Russia, and saying, where can we find common interests that will advance the security of the American people, the peace and prosperity of the world? And he is determined to come at that in a new and renewed way.
DICKERSON: But America morally superior to Russia — yes or no?
PENCE: I believe that the ideals that America has stood for throughout our history represent the highest ideals of humankind.
(CROSSTALK)
PENCE: I was actually at — I was at Independence Hall yesterday. And I stood in the very room where the Constitution of the United States was crafted, the very building where the Declaration of Independence was held forth. Every American, including our president, represents that we uphold the highest ideals of the world.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: Shouldn’t we be able to just say yes to that question, though?
PENCE: I think it is, without question, John.
DICKERSON: That America is morally superior to Russia?
PENCE: That American ideals are — are superior to countries all across the world. But, again, what the president is determined to do, as someone who has spent a lifetime looking for deals, is to see if we can have a new relationship with Russia and other countries that advances the interests of America first and the peace and security of the world.
Suffice it to say, this is not an easy question right now for Pence — or anybody in the Trump administration. That’s because American exceptionalism is at the core of the Republican Party’s brand and identity in the 21st century. Squaring that with Trump’s suggestion that the United States doesn’t have the moral high ground on the killing of its opponents requires all the politician-speak one can muster — and ignoring pretty much everything you’ve ever said about why the United States is morally superior to the likes of Russia.
Just look at Pence’s comments about both Russia and American exceptionalism in one speech back in February 2015 at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):
- “And as we gather here tonight a new iron curtain is descending down the spine of Europe as modern Russia seeks to redraw the map of Europe by force. Unlike the former Soviet Union that respected the strength of West, Putin’s Russia ignores talk of sanctions, claims land, and supports rebels in Ukraine with impunity.”
- “You either choose to view America as the shining city on the hill that inspires the best in all mankind, or you don’t.”
- “The truth is you cannot command the respect of the world when you spend years apologizing to our enemies and abandoning our friends. Lecturing the American people about the Crusades while refusing to call Islamic extremism by name is an abdication of leadership.”
The last comment in particular sticks out. Pence didn’t like the equivalence between radical Islam today and the Crusades back in the 13th century. Now he’s being asked to explain Trump’s comparison of Putin and the American government.
And then there’s the polling.
Back in 2015, the Pew Research Center asked whether the United States “stands above all others,” was one of the greatest countries, or whether there were other countries that were better.
Fully 48 percent of conservative Republicans said it was the greatest country in the world, compared to 17 percent of liberal Democrats. Just 8 percent of conservative Republicans disagreed that the United States is at least “one of the greatest countries.”
The GOP’s embrace of patriotism and American exceptionalism ramped up after 9/11 and especially when Democrats began to question the war in Iraq. Some on the right fought back by arguing that this was unpatriotic or that war skeptics opposed U.S. troops.
And it was a fixture of the opposition to Barack Obama, whom Republicans regularly accused of “apologizing” for America. This was a major theme of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign against Obama, and back in 2015, Rudy Giuliani accused Obama of believing “that American exceptionalism is no more exceptional than the exceptionalism of any other country in the world.”
Giuliani is now a key Trump confidant, and Trump is espousing almost that exact view that Giuliani ascribed to Obama. And now the likes of Giuliani and Pence are left to explain it.
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