![]() ![]() Even so, they are almost comically mismatched. “The President considers him one of his best decisions,” Tony Fabrizio, a pollster for Trump, told me. Pence, who declined requests for an interview, is also one of the few with whom Trump hasn’t overtly feuded. He’s in the national-security briefings.” Moreover, and crucially, Pence is the only official in the White House who can’t be fired. Gingrich went on, “Others have some influence, such as Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn. Newt Gingrich told me recently that the three people with the most policy influence in the Administration are Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and Pence. And, with all the infighting in the new Administration, few have focussed on Pence’s power within the White House. During the tumultuous 2016 Presidential campaign, relatively little attention was paid to how Pence was chosen, or to his political record. If the job is a gamble for Pence, he himself is something of a gamble for the country. Kennedy, he calculated his odds of ascension to be approximately one in four, and is said to have told Clare Boothe Luce, “I’m a gambling man, darling, and this is the only chance I’ve got.” After Lyndon Johnson decided to join the ticket with John F. Of his forty-seven predecessors, nine eventually assumed the Presidency, because of a death or a resignation. Pence’s odds of becoming President are long but not prohibitive. The more Trump is mired in scandal, the more likely Pence’s elevation to the Oval Office becomes, unless he ends up legally entangled as well. The worse the President looks, the more desirable his understudy seems. Pence, who has dutifully stood by the President, mustering a devotional gaze rarely seen since the days of Nancy Reagan, serves as a daily reminder that the Constitution offers an alternative to Trump. After Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, Gail Collins, the Times columnist, praised Vice-President Mike Pence as someone who at least “seems less likely to get the planet blown up.” This summer, an opinion column by Dana Milbank, of the Washington Post, appeared under the headline “ ‘ President Pence’ is Sounding Better and Better.” Trump’s swerve did the unthinkable-uniting Coulter and liberal commentators. Coulter tweeted, “At this point, who doesn’t want Trump impeached?” She soon added, “If we’re not getting a wall, I’d prefer President Pence.” ![]() Within hours, Trump disavowed the deal, then reaffirmed it. ![]() The previous day, President Trump had dined with Democratic leaders at the White House, and had impetuously agreed to a major policy reversal, granting provisional residency to undocumented immigrants who came to America as children. On September 14th, the right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, who last year published a book titled “In Trump We Trust,” expressed what a growing number of Americans, including conservatives, have been feeling since the 2016 election. ![]()
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