Recent moves by Vice President Mike Pence reflect the strain he's feeling amid the chaos and turmoil in the White House, The Washington Post reported.
A staunch defender of President Donald Trump who's been a willing foot soldier and proponent of his polices might also be feeling the heat.
Pence this week hired an attorney to protect himself amid an obstruction probe into Trump, and his team is also considering adding another senior aide to help insulate the vice president so that he can continue working on the Hill with Republican colleagues to advance the president's legislative goals, the Post reported.
The legal moves follow the ignominy Pence faced — twice — when he publicly defended former national security adviser Michael Flynn (a sin for which Flynn was subsequently fired), and then serving as the front man for justifying Trump's termination of Comey, only to have the president contradict him, the Post reported.
"It’s tough to be Donald Trump’s vice president, because Trump says flamboyant things and then if you’re the vice president, you have to go on TV and defend things that are hard to defend,” Stephen Moore, former senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the Post.
But that's the essence of Pence, much to the chagrin of his staff and allies who'd like to see him be more assertive and less willing to jump in the line of fire for Trump, the Post reported.
Especially if Pence has aspirations beyond this administration.
“He runs a real risk in that so often his celebration of Trump is focused on how great Trump is, and not on the substance of the specific policies he's trying to sell, and so I think that can end up making him look like he’s just sort of weak and not presidential and not dignified," Joel Goldstein, law professor at Saint Louis University, told the Post.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.