Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence shrugged off Chuck Todd’s questions about the sexual and other misconduct of Donald Trump campaign advisors Roger Ailes and Stephen Bannon – because winning!
I’ve written extensively about allegations about Ailes’ sexual misconduct and his spying and smearing operation (that Fox seems to be continuing after his departure). I’ve written for Liberal America about Bannon’s promotion of the “Alt-Right.” Since then, Politico reported that Bannon was charged in a domestic violence case (the charges were later dropped when the victim failed to appear in court).
Yesterday, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd questioned Pence about Ailes and Bannon. But Pence indicated such confidence in Trump’s judgment, he didn’t seem to see any need to think for himself on the subject.
From Media Matters’ transcript (with my emphases):
CHUCK TODD (HOST): Quick question about the leadership of the campaign, there’s been some troubling allegations both against Steve Bannon, some things he may have said about Jewish people, some things that may have happened between him and his wife. There’s been troubling allegations having to do with Roger Ailes. Both of whom are apparently advisers to this campaign. Are you comfortable with that considering some of the allegations you’ve read against both of these men? Are you comfortable with their involvement in this campaign?
MIKE PENCE: I promise you the person leading Donald Trump’s campaign is Donald Trump. He and I talk every day, sometimes several times a day. He is—he is a hands on leader and a hands on CEO.
TODD: Appropriate for Roger Ailes to be involved?
PENCE: I trust Donald Trump’s judgment to assemble around this team a group that’s going to help us move forward and be successful and win. And come on, I mean, Steve Bannon has denied all of those allegations—
TODD: Some are in court records. I mean, look, I know—look, divorces are divorces. But it’s troubling allegations, people are going to look and say, all right, Steve Bannon and then you see all these allegations against Roger Ailes, it just feels as if there’s—does he ignore troubling allegations against people that work for him?
PENCE: I trust Donald Trump to assemble a team around him in this campaign has he has and will continue to. You’ll continue to see people added to this campaign.
Bigotry? Domestic violence? Sexual harassment? No problem for this guy who calls himself “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
Watch Pence reveal his real Christian values below, from the September 4 Meet The Press, via Media Matters.
The Trump campaign is a parody that writes itself. Though not so funny if America elects the neo-Fascist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkm7ts62VM
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Disclosure: I made that last sentence up.
Of course.
For Pence, Drumpf, and the tea-nuts who support them, sexual misconduct is only a problem if the person has the last name “Clinton”.
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