How Mike Pence is weathering the recent Russia revelations
Vice president says he’s still on board, but he’s hanging on tight during this roller coaster ride
Just one day after President Trump’s oldest son stunned the political world by releasing emails showing he actively sought damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government, Mike Pence offered an interesting and rather dramatic description of what it’s really like to be vice president.
According to Pence, being a leader can feel like being on a roller coaster.
“You need to keep your arms and legs in the ride at all times,” he told student leaders Wednesday at American University. “Put the roll bar down, because you just got to hang on.”
The roller coaster analogy appeared to be a particularly apt one these days for Pence, who is trying to navigate the latest controversy to hit the White House after this week’s revelations that Donald Trump Jr. met last summer with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya — after he was told the Russian government would provide the information as part of its support for his father’s campaign.
After the news broke, Pence issued a statement that appeared to distance himself from the Trump campaign. Pence is “not focused on stories about the campaign, particularly stories about the time before he joined the ticket,” his spokesman Marc Lotter said Tuesday.
The meeting, which also included then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and sonin-law Jared Kushner, took place right after Trump clinched the Republican nomination last summer.
Pence’s reaction to the disclosure appeared to be a stark departure from his usual blanket rejections that there was any contact between Trumpland and the Russians, as well as from Pence’s usual effusive praise of Trump.
“We all see what’s happening here. The roof is falling in on the president and the administration,” said political commentator Stuart Rothenberg. “I took it as an effort to ... create a separate narrative. It’s hard for me to believe it’s anything else.”
Ron Klain, who worked for former Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, put it more bluntly on Twitter: “I’ve never seen any @VP statement that so distanced himself from the @POTUS.”
But spokesman Lotter argued Wednesday that his original statement explained that Pence is still focused on advancing Trump’s agenda. The vice president, Lotter said, continues to have a packed schedule that recently included multiple meetings Tuesday on health care and a trip to Kentucky on Wednesday to help sell the GOP bill. “Any suggestion that he is distancing himself is laughable armchair punditry,” Lotter said.
Yet another adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Pence is taking a wait-andsee approach to the latest controversy before mounting a robust defense of the administration.
The adviser said Pence is han- dling the situation in the same way he did with the biggest bombshell during the campaign season — the release of the Access
Hollywood tapes in which Trump bragged about groping women. Pence canceled a campaign trip to Wisconsin and laid low for several days, until Trump apologized during the debate. In the same way, Pence is letting Trump take the lead on responding to the latest Russia revelations, the adviser said.
The measured response is evidence of the tightrope Pence continues to walk as he tries to support his boss without sacrificing his own reputation and political future.
With growing criminal and congressional investigations into possible collusion between the Trump team and the Russian government, Pence has tried to keep his distance from potential scandals but he’s still had to lawyer up — hiring last month Richard Cullen, former U.S. attorney who is chairman of Washington, D.C.-based law firm McGuire Woods.
Pence may be playing it more cautiously since he has been sent out time and again to defend the president on many controversial issues, from Russia to voter fraud claims Trump has made without evidence.
And some of his previous comments have come back to bite him. Pence, in a January appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, dismissed as “bizarre rumors” the question of whether anyone in the Trump campaign had contact with Russians who were trying to meddle in the election.
“Of course not,” Pence said when posed a similar question by Chris Wallace of Fox News Sun
day. “Why would there be any contacts between the campaign?”
Trump Jr.’s emails, of course, call these comments into question. So while Mike Murphy, another longtime friend of Pence and an Indiana political strategist, said Pence might be one of the most loyal people he’s ever met — he notes that “he’s also not naïve.”
Murphy said the facts surrounding the Trump Jr. meeting are continuing to emerge, so it doesn’t make sense for Pence to give a full-throated defense of the situation yet. “I don’t think it’s disloyal,” he said. “I think it’s prudent.”
Rothenberg, the political commentator, said Pence faces the classic problem all vice presidents have: They need the president to do well and their job is to be supportive. But at the same time, they have to look out for their own future. And these kinds of controversies make that job difficult.
“He’s trying to walk those fine lines. ‘Yeah, I’m supportive, but I didn’t know about his stuff,’ ” Rothenberg said. “He’ll have to go back and forth on this line depending upon the next shoe to drop.”
But those who know Pence well say they expect him to remain loyal to Trump, even as he takes steps for self-preservation. “He is 150% a Trumpster now,” said Rex Early, former chairman of the Indiana GOP who headed the Trump/Pence campaign in the state. “He’s loyal, as he should be.”
Calling Pence “the ultimate team player,” Indiana Republican Bob Grand said Pence’s comment was just a statement of fact, not an attempt to distance himself from the situation.
“He’s cherished the moment that he got selected,” said Grand, a top GOP fundraiser and Pence friend who helped Pence celebrate his recent birthday on Air Force 2. “He worked tirelessly on the campaign. ... That’s a team. He’s with the president.”
As he spoke to students at American University, Pence did not address the controversy, but he did call Trump a champion, a visionary and a bold leader who is restoring America’s rightful role as leader of the free world.