Presidential Historian Says Pence Abandoned Trump Because He Doesn’t Like His Chances

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:17 pm

As noted earlier, Mike Pence could have defended Donald Trump at the VP Debate last night, but he went to Plan B instead, which was to pretend Donald Trump doesn’t exist.

This did not mean Pence did not lie and lie often, only that he was protecting himself, possibly in order to position himself for a 2020 run.

Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, author of The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev (1991), and Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes (1997), among others, envisions a much more immediate reason, and that is that “maybe he is not too optimistic about the possibility of being vice president.”

Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:

What I was astounded by was the number of times that Mike Pence declined the opportunity to defend Donald Trump against Tim Kaine’s attacks.
 
You know, Kaine would talk about the attacks on Mexican-Americans and women and so on, and Pence would just sort of — you know, was almost suggesting that Kaine had done something gross by even mentioning such a thing, and sort of — Pence sort of flicked it away almost as if they were discussing the antics of an errant child.
 
Now, why is it that other vice presidential candidates in history have defended their presidential candidate so zealously? Well, number one, that’s their job in these debates, but number two, they do it because if their ticket gets elected and this guy becomes vice president, he is going to have to depend on the president to decide whether he has a lot to do, or whether, you know, he is essentially distanced from the Oval Office.
 
And the astounding thing to me tonight was that, you know, Pence declined so many chances to defend Trump, suggested to me that you know, maybe he is not too optimistic about the possibility of being vice president, and therefore he thought it was OK to do that.

Trump constantly reminds us he has only the “best people” working for him. The VP candidate is supposed to defend the guy running for president. Tim Kaine was tenacious in his defense of Hillary Clinton last night, but this is something Pence, hand-picked by Trump, failed to do.

Mike Pence will certainly be unlikely to appear in any update of Beschloss’ Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America (2008). When faced with the fight or flight response, Pence chose flight. It became every man for himself, and he was more than willing to throw Trump under the bus (admittedly, a bus driven by Trump himself).

It was probably an easy choice for a politician who has already shown so little courage (think his precipitous retreat from Indiana’s RFRA when opposition and outrage reared its head). It is a choice that will not only worsen Trump’s already miserable chances of getting into the Oval Office, but will rebound on Pence himself should he attempt a 2020 run.

The GOP’s hopes for 2016 are being dashed against the rocks, destroyed not only by “outsider” Donald Trump, but the guy who was supposed to make Trump look good, Mike Pence.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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