With the Washington political and media world obsessed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s slow walk to impeachment hearings for President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence has opened up his own lane, leading cheers for a new Mexico trade deal, blasting China, and gassing up an airplane to fill the country in on the administration’s successes.
In just the last week, he ripped Chinese human rights and the NBA’s ties to the communist country, promoted the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in Wisconsin, and was in Turkey to oversee the start of a ceasefire with Syrian and Kurdish forces.
VP Mike Pence visits Uline in Pleasant Prairie, talks about new trade pact https://t.co/hhe2KkUdJy pic.twitter.com/8oKsBZ3pXP
— FOX6 News (@fox6now) October 24, 2019
Officials said that the president has asked him to “talk about and push the policies that are actually top of mind for the American people.”
Ever since the impeachment inquiry began, Pence has taken the lead in promoting the administration’s policies, traveling 12,000 miles and visiting eight states, mostly to talk up the job creation potential of the trade deal that appears stalled in the House.
“The USMCA would be great for Wisconsin; it would be great for America,” Pence said during a stop at Uline Inc. “In these divided times, I think it also shows the world that we can still get important things done that benefit all of the American people.”
In Washington, he addressed two major events: an annual Heritage Foundation gala and the inaugural Frederic V. Malek Memorial Lecture.
At Heritage, he took issue with House inaction. “The Do-Nothing Democrats will stop at nothing to roll back the progress that we’ve made. They’ve spent the last three years on endless investigations trying to overturn the will of the American people in the last election. But enough is enough. The American people have had enough of their endless investigations and partisan impeachment. The American people want progress in America, and that’s what we’ve delivered and are going to keep delivering.”
At the Malek event, he addressed China and the NBA, prompting an angry response from former NBA star Charles Barkley. “Vice President Pence needs to shut the hell up,” Barkley said on TNT.
Pence in his speeches and travels typically tells his audiences that while the media is ignoring the administration’s agenda, the White House is moving forward on policies.
For example, during an appearance on Fox, he said, “Whatever the Democrats want to spend their time doing on Capitol Hill, this president and his vice president and this administration are going to keep focused on the issues that we were elected to advance.”
Spokesman Darin B. Miller echoed that. He told Secrets, “If the Democrats want to squander their House majority, that’s their prerogative, but President Trump and the vice president are focused on putting the American people first, and he remains committed to that.”
Pence is also continuing to reach out to evangelicals and conservatives who make up part of the president’s base, another role Trump has asked him to fill.
