As the fighting continued year after year, Mr. Pence kept up his support, speaking forcefully in favor of the Iraq war even as many Americans turned against it. But his firm stance on that invasion now represents one of the most jarring differences in his abrupt political marriage to Donald J. Trump ..
.. From the use of force to free trade to diplomacy, Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence hold very different views of the United States’ role in the world
.. Mr. Pence has adopted a firmer position, telling a conservative gathering in 2015: “Israel’s enemies are our enemies.”
.. “I believe it is imperative that conservatives again embrace America’s role as leader of the free world and the arsenal of democracy,” he said last year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, as he called for “dramatically” increasing military spending... Mr. Pence has expressed his approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and voted for trade agreements while a member of the House. During his first successful congressional campaign, in 2000, his opponents criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, but Mr. Pence expressed support for the trade pact and the idea of free trade... Mr. Trump insists that the United States is losing when it comes to trade. In 2001, Mr. Pence said that when American companies compete globally, “We win, and we win consistently.”
Donald Trump’s speech introducing Mike Pence showed why he shouldn’t be president
What started as farce continued as farce. Trump emerged without Pence. He spoke, alone, at a podium adorned with Trump’s name, but not Pence’s. And then Trump proceeded to talk about himself for 28 minutes. There is no other way to say this than to say it: it was the single most bizarre, impulsive, narcissistic performance I have ever seen from a major politician.
.. I can tell you that he rambled, but that doesn’t do it justice. He spoke about Hillary Clinton, about himself, about his victories. He talked about crushing the Republican establishment in the primaries and talking to a buddy building plants in Mexico. He bragged about the beautiful hotel he is building in Washington, DC, and patted himself on the back for his foreign policy foresight over the years.
Every five minutes or so, he seemed to remember, just for a moment, like a man trying and failing to wake from a dream, that he was there to introduce Mike Pence, and so he would say something like, “now back to Mike Pence,” but then he would slip back again, and tell another anecdote about himself
.. Even when he did mention Pence, he often managed to say exactly the wrong thing. “One of the big reasons I chose Mike is party unity, I have to be honest,” Trump admitted midway through his speech, at the moment another candidate would have said “I chose Mike because he’ll be a great president.” Trump then segued into a riff on how thoroughly he had humiliated the Republican establishment in state after state. Thus he managed to turn Pence from a peace offering into a head on a pike, a warning to all who might come after.
Seven Reasons It Made Sense for Donald Trump to pick Mike Pence
The running mate’s role is to support and amplify the boss’s message, not to usurp it. As Gingrich demonstrated on Thursday night, with his call for American Muslims to be subjected to a Sharia-law test, he’s not one of nature’s number twos.
.. Many of the potential problems with picking Gingrich also apply to the New Jersey governor, who is loud and domineering, and has an equally dismal approval rating: thirty-four per cent
.. Trump’s only realistic, or semi-realistic, chance of getting to two hundred and seventy electoral votes is to storm through the Midwest and the Rust Belt, racking up huge majorities of white votes. To this end, his ideal choice would have been John Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio, but Kasich didn’t want the job. Nor did Rob Portman, the Ohio senator who served in the Bush Administration, or Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin. And no one in Michigan or Pennsylvania was particularly suitable, either. That left Pence
.. In May, after wrapping up the nomination, he said, “This is called the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party.” But, like John McCain and Mitt Romney before him, Trump ultimately had to come to terms with the nature of the beast he is trying to ride to the White House.
.. Selecting Pence, a former head of the Republican Study Group on Capitol Hill, sends a signal that Trump is willing to work with the Party establishment and listen to what it says.
.. Ryan released a statement saying that there could be “no better choice for our vice-presidential candidate.”
.. Most people who take civil rights and the Constitution seriously are already aghast at the prospect of a Trump Presidency. Is there anyone out there who was willing to look past Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims, a resumption of torture, and the deportation of eleven million undocumented workers, but who will not vote for the Republican ticket because of Pence’s support for an Indiana law that allowed businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians? Perhaps such people exist, but I doubt there are very many.
Pence walks back criticism of Trump’s Muslim ban Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mike-pence-muslim-ban-225645#ixzz4EcjoHCpp Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
“I am very supportive of Donald Trump’s call to temporarily suspend immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States,” Pence told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, reframing Trump’s call for an indefinite ban on Muslim entry into the U.S. “until we can figure out what is going on.”
.. “I believe the position he’s articulated that resonates with millions of Americans is that we’ve got to find out what’s going on, and we’ve got to do something different, and we’ve got to put the safety and security of the American people first,” said Pence, who was appearing in his first televised interview since being announced as Trump’s pick shortly before 11 a.m. ET.
The comments represent a total reversal for Pence, who during the Republican primaries blasted Trump’s proposed ban as “offensive and unconstitutional” on Twitter.
.. (Trump has since modulated his proposal — reframing it as a ban on immigration from countries with a significant terrorism problem — while not explicitly acknowledging having changed it.)