Meet the Trump Resistance’s new hero: Vice President Mike Pence.
At least, that’s what they thought, according to the anonymous author of A Warning, a book that details the internal effort to undermine President Trump’s administration.
The author of the book is the same person who wrote last year’s infamous New York Times op-ed, which detailed the efforts of inside bureaucrats attempting to temper Trump’s worst tendencies and even circumvent them.
One such effort involved several high-level White House aides and administration officials who considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. The author alleges that during their tally of Cabinet members who would sign a letter declaring Trump unfit, the resistance types counted Pence as one of them.
This effort, of course, never came to fruition. Even if it had, it’s highly unlikely Pence would have ever agreed to it. Pence’s team has already dismissed the allegation as “fake news,” and a few other individuals close to Pence have confirmed the vice president would never have signed on for that kind of plan in the first place.
But it’s worth considering why these bureaucrats thought Pence would jump on board the anti-Trump bandwagon. Pence has not once suggested (openly, at least) that Trump is unfit for office or unpresidential. If he had, he probably wouldn’t be vice president. Pence agreed to work with and for Trump, and when he made that decision he knew exactly who Trump was, faults and all.
For Pence to then turn around and sign a letter declaring Trump unfit would be completely out of character. Pence isn’t a hard guy to read (neither is Trump, for that matter). Quite frankly, Pence doesn’t seem to have the kind of political ambition necessary to betray the guy who chose him to be vice president and then take his job.
Believe it or not, Pence probably agrees with Trump — he might even like him, too!
Despite what the Resistance types might think, this is not a Shakespeare play and they are not heroes. This is politics, and Trump is a legitimately elected president. This means that when you fight a president, you fight him on legal and constitutional grounds, or impeach him, or kick him out in the next election, as I wrote last month. It doesn’t mean unidentified, unelected bureaucrats get to take governing powers into their own hands and run their own show behind the scenes.
These bureaucrats are make-believe heroes in search of a make-believe villain. At least there’s one person in Trump’s corner who understands that.
