Vice President Mike Pence drew what appeared to be a parallel between himself and the late George H.W. Bush when he became vice president in the 1980s.
Addressing lawmakers and dignitaries in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, where Bush’s casket will remain until Wednesday, Pence recalled a joke Bush once told about becoming Ronald Reagan’s vice president.
“I’m told as he was preparing to become vice president he once joked about the job, saying that there was ‘nothing substantive to do at all,'” Pence said before stopping for dramatic pause.
“But as history records, during those years, he set the standard as a sound counselor and loyal adviser to an outsider who came to Washington, D.C., to shake things up, cut taxes, rebuild the military and together, they did just that,” he added.
President Trump is also considered an outsider president who was elected to shake things up in Washington — or “drain the swamp,” as Trump likes to put it. While Trump is widely seen as being a loose cannon of sorts, Pence, formerly the governor of Indiana, is viewed as being more of a calm, steady presence bridging the gap with traditional conservatives.
Trump himself has drawn comparisons between himself and Reagan. In a newly released book, he is quoted as saying that his long list of achievements in office make him “far greater than Ronald Reagan.”
Bush, who was the 41st president, died at his home in Houston on Friday at the age of 94.
