Fox News is pretending that Donald Trump’s refusal to endorse his own vice president, Mike Pence, for president in 2024 is just like former President Barack Obama refraining from endorsing his former vice president, Joe Biden. Of course, there’s a huge difference.
During his 50-minute birthday chat with his Fox Friends on Friday, cohost Steve Doocy asked, “If Mike Pence runs for president in 2024, does he have your automatic endorsement?”
Trump made it very clear that despite all those adoring glances, Pence has no such assurance:
TRUMP: Well, it's far too -- look, I love Mike. We're running again. But, you know, you're talking about a long time. So you can't put me in that position.
But I --I certainly would give it very strong consideration.
[…]
He's a very, very outstanding person.
Not surprisingly, that comment raised some eyebrows. Just as unsurprisingly, Fox News jumped to the rescue. Or tried to do so.
In an article called, “Some in media sound alarm on Trump not yet endorsing Pence in 2024,” reporter Joseph A. Wulfsohn made it out to be just a case of media bias:
Several members of the media believe there's "trouble in paradise" between President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence after Trump refrained from endorsing his running mate in 2024 during an appearance on Fox.
At the same time, former President Obama has so far failed to endorse his Vice President, Joe Biden, who is currently running for president.
Wolfsuhn also noted this tweet from reporter Jonathan Allen:
It's a big deal that Trump won't commit to endorsing Pence in 2024. He's telling the country that Pence is the next best person to be president as his running mate, but not really?
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) June 14, 2019
There was lots of online speculation in response to Allen’s tweet: that Trump will refuse to leave office; that he wants to run again in 2024 if he loses in 2020; that he wants to pass the job on to one of his kids. Sadly, each of those scenarios is all too plausible.
But the one thing that isn’t plausible is the comparison to Obama. For one thing, Biden is not currently the next in line to the presidency. Not only is Pence in that position but, as Allen noted in his tweet, by campaigning with Pence as VP, Trump is basically signaling that Pence is merely "good for now," not best.
Also, there is a large field of Democratic contenders and Obama is working toward party unity and therefore does not want to endorse or not endorse any candidate other than the eventual Democratic nominee. However, in 2024, Pence will be the heir apparent.
Sad!
And, by the way, check out how Doocy points out that the interview has lasted 32 minutes along with cohost Ainsley Earhardt’s look of “When is this guy going to get off the phone?” Well, not yet, Ainsley. When Trump finally did hang up, Doocy said, “All right, we thought that interview might go 10 minutes. It went 50 minutes and 20 seconds.” But who's counting?
Don’t forget, at the beginning of the interview, Trump told his Trump Friends that he was too busy working to celebrate his birthday that day.
Watch Trump knife Pence in the back below, from the June 14, 2019 Fox & Friends.
1. Assuming that the 2-3 million active Dem voters across the swing states who stayed home in 2016 have learned their lesson from our current mess, the Pence White House and its sycophants will hopefully be sent packing next year. If that happens, and it’s a big IF, then this entire notion is moot. For all our sakes, I hope that is the case.
2. We need to keep in mind that Mike Pence ALREADY IS THE ACTING PRESIDENT. This is commonly known in DC and by anyone paying even mild attention to what is going on in the nation’s capitol. We know that the deal offered to any potential VP for Trump was that they would handle all the domestic and foreign policy (ie do all the work of being President). When John Kasich was offered this deal by the Trumps, he famously asked what the heck Trump would be doing and was told “he’ll be out making America great again.” And it’s obvious from the people who are getting picked for all the judiciary spots (all VERY FAR RIGHT) and from the deliberate gutting of the Cabinet (from the FAR RIGHT notion that we really shouldn’t have a Cabinet anyway) and from the vindictive approach to raising taxes on Blue States and Middle Class employees while slashing them for the wealthy, that Pence is making the decisions. True, he does need to deal with his childish spokesman making embarrassing comments and sometimes contradicting his policies, but that usually passes quickly. Pence is the man for the Right Wing and the GOP, and they’re fully aware he’s already getting it done for them. They’re fine to have Trump take all the attention and distract everyone, so long as they keep getting those policies and those lifetime court picks.
4. Ellen is correct to note that Trump is probably hoping that he can just have one of his kids follow him, and presumably have Pence stick around as veep to keep doing all their work for them just as he’s doing all the work now.
As for President Obama’s holding back on making any endorsement right now, Ellen is again correct. It would be nonsensical for him to jump out in front of the entire primary process, when nobody really knows how things will shake out. Obama is of course going to endorse the nominee once we know who that is. Right now, we have a plethora of candidates, namely due to the fact that everyone in the country is aware of how weak and unpopular the Pence White House is. The number of candidates will winnow down by next spring and then we’ll know who the candidate is – and that’s when President Obama’s voice will be heard, as it should be.
Trump’s refusal to say anything in support of his purported vice president (and actually the acting president) is a lot more interesting – regardless of whether Fox News wants its viewers to figure it out or not.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/16/trump-says-supporters-could-demand-he-not-leave-after-two-terms/1471915001/
A lot of people have claimed Trump won’t leave office. I blew it off. Now I’m not so sure! 😱