Mike Pence

Not everything is about sex.

The congressman turned radio host has criticized the president’s behavior, but he supports much of the agenda.

We read the big speeches so that you don’t have to.

Clickbait headline overblows reality. Water still wet.

The vice president calls for an end to the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling.

Mike Pence’s callout to Joe Arpaio was shameless and the sign of a larger problem.

The Secret Service trumps the NRA's Second Amendment predilection.

On March 18, the top-ranked Amazon item was a brand-new children’s book titled A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo. The book is credited to the late-night TV host John Oliver’s show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, so we assume Oliver is the author. It’s a “children’s picture book about a Very…

Vice President Mike Pence’s daughter Charlotte wrote—and his wife, Karen, illustrated—a children’s book about the family bunny Marlon Bundo. It’s not Beatrix Potter or Watership Down. But it’s on time for the Easter theme, charmingly illustrated, and needless to say well-intentioned. Who doesn’t…

Michael Warren is on vacation this week, and Andrew Egger is filling in for him on White House Watch. Michael will be back in the saddle on March 12.

It wouldn’t be a week at the Trump White House if there weren’t talk of a staff shakeup, and that’s how this week appears to be closing. First, CNN reported Thursday the Pentagon was “considering options” for moving national security adviser H.R. McMaster into a four-star general role back at the…

For a stupid but explicable reason—American culture is bored, indulgent, tribal, and unthinking—Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean dicator Kim Jong-un, was memed (flatteringly) because she gave Vice President Mike Pence “side eye.” As the Washington Post's Philip Bump tweeted (before…

Rob Porter, the now-former staff secretary at the White House, was given the benefit of the doubt when credible allegations he had physically abused his ex-wives emerged this week. That’s how deputy press secretary Raj Shah put it in his briefing to the press Thursday, a day after Porter tendered…

Activists who oppose abortion doubted Donald Trump when he was a candidate because he had once described himself as "very pro-choice." A year into his presidency, however, they happily point to victories he has achieved for them.

Considering they were protesting what they call “the greatest human rights violation of our time,” the crowd that gathered on the National Mall Friday morning for the March for Life was oddly upbeat. Church and school groups who had traveled across the country to show their opposition to 45 years…

Last week, I wrote that I thought Donald Trump was dangerous but that it would be a “tragic mistake” to remove him. Here’s why: The 25th Amendment. There’s been a lot of talk recently about invoking that amendment in order to remove Trump from office.

Donald Trump has a strange ability to inspire contradictory thoughts, some of which are sensible, some of which are not.

When President Trump and Congress come back to Washington in January, will infrastructure be first on the to-do list? My new piece for the magazine looks at the White House’s plans for building new roads and bridges. Here’s an excerpt:

Voting on the final Republican tax bill begins Tuesday, and a pledge Monday afternoon from Maine senator Susan Collins that she would support it all but sealed the deal—she’s the 50th vote in the Senate, and Vice President Mike Pence, if needed, can provide vote number 51.

What did President Trump accomplish on his 12-day, 5-nation trip through East Asia? Not much, at least not substantively—and that’s judging by the president’s own remarks at the White House on Wednesday. Speaking to cameras and the press pool from the Diplomatic Room, the president provided a…

So far, the White House is urging people to be “cautious” about the allegations against Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore of Alabama documented in a Thursday article in the Washington Post. Citing 30 sources, the Post reports four teenage girls who now say the thirtysomething Moore asked them on…

More Election Day Fallout—The White House pushed back Wednesday on the conventional assessment that the Democratic wave election in Virginia and elsewhere reflected poorly on Donald Trump: The president’s party always faces “headwinds” in elections in the first year; Virginia was trending…

More Election Day Fallout—The White House pushed back Wednesday on the conventional assessment that the Democratic wave election in Virginia and elsewhere reflected poorly on Donald Trump: The president’s party always faces “headwinds” in elections in the first year; Virginia was trending…

There was a noticeable absence of anyone from the Trump administration on the five main Sunday talk shows. President Donald Trump himself was just two days into his marathon foreign trip to Asia, but there seemed to be no eagerness on the part of the White House or the rest of the administration to…

Vice President Mike Pence made a relatively quiet visit to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday. According to the White House schedule, the visit consisted a series of briefings with CIA officials, but Pence also delivered prepared remarks to agents and employees there.

On October 3, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, spoke to a group of Republican donors at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington. Unbeknownst to Ayers, his remarks were recorded, and the audio was subsequently obtained by Politico.

Vice President Mike Pence departed an NFL game Sunday afternoon in response to several players who knelt during the playing of the National Anthem, he said in a statement.

On October 3, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, spoke to a group of Republican donors at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington. Unbeknownst to Ayers, his remarks were recorded, and the audio was subsequently obtained by Politico.

More bad news for congressional Republicans coming out of the White House Tuesday: Politico reports that Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff is whipping up donors to “purge” GOP lawmakers who don’t rally behind the president’s legislative agenda.

President Donald Trump will sign the Graham-Cassidy health-care bill if it passes Congress, CNN first reported Tuesday.

Vice President Mike Pence departed New York City immediately after President Trump concluded his speech before the United Nations General Assembly Monday morning to attend a Senate policy lunch in Washington, D.C. to help wrangle votes on the latest Obamacare repeal effort.

The president travels to Springfield, Missouri, on Wednesday to deliver a speech about tax reform. Congress will take up this next legislative agenda item when it returns from its August recess after Labor Day. But don’t expect Donald Trump to roll out a detailed set of proposed reforms and changes…

Throughout the entire length of the administration’s internal debate about Afghanistan, President Donald Trump was torn between two competing impulses: his desire to end the 16-year-long war, and his need to win. When it came time to make a decision on Afghanistan, which he will announce in a…

Vice President Mike Pence is returning from his Latin American trip to Washington on Thursday, a day earlier than planned. Could a decision on the war in Afghanistan be in the offing?

Vice President Mike Pence is returning from his Latin American trip to Washington on Thursday, a day earlier than planned.

The only thing likely protecting Steve Bannon’s job is the fact that everyone in Washington expects he’s about to lose it. Administration officials inside the West Wing are already acting as if Bannon is halfway out the door. On Meet the Press Sunday, National security adviser H.R. McMaster refused…

The fallout continues from this weekend’sNew York Times article about the “shadow campaigns” for president forming around ambitious Republicans—including Vice President Mike Pence—ready for if and when President Donald Trump does not run for reelection in 2020.

President Donald Trump is only 200 days into his first term, but other Republicans are already eyeing the Oval Office.

The president is expected to sign a sanctions bill targeting Russia, Iran, and North Korea “very soon,” according to the chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations panel.

Senate Republicans advanced an instrument more than an idea for Obamacare repeal Tuesday with a wild vote interrupted by jeering protesters and applause for the pivotal return of an ailing colleague.

A spokesman for Mike Pence on Wednesday repeatedly refused to answer whether the vice president ever met with representatives from Russia during last year’s campaign. Appearing on Fox News, Pence press secretary Marc Lotter was asked by host Bill Hemmer, “Did the vice president ever meet with…

In a prepared statement Tuesday, President Donald Trump called his oldest son, Don Jr., a “high-quality person” and added, “I applaud his transparency.” Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read this statement to reporters in the White House briefing room Tuesday afternoon, a few short…

President Donald Trump released a statement Wednesday morning following reports of a shooting at a baseball practice of Republican members of Congress.

Protesting political commencement speakers—presidents past and present, former or current Cabinet members who wax platitudinous on graduation day—is not a new phenomenon. SoVice President Mike Pence knew what he was walking into at Notre Dame last weekend. He came prepared. And while he condemned…

The notices are in, and they're brutal. Donald Trump's nascent North Korea policy—announcing the end of "strategic patience" (Barack Obama's code for sitting around and doing nothing about the North's pursuit of nuclear weapons), leaning on China to rein in Pyongyang, strengthening sanctions, and…

On today's Daily Standard Podcast, associate editor Ethan Epstein discusses the saber rattling in North Korea, Vice President Mike Pence's visit, and what to expect from the reclusive dictatorship.

Tensions are rising as North Korea continues its attempted shows of provocation and the United States ramps up its effort to deal with Pyongyang. The White House, including the president himself, is sending public signals that stopping North Korea from having a deliverable nuclear weapon is a top…

Amid unsparing challenges from conservative critics and policy wonks, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the House GOP's new health care legislation is "the bill" to begin undoing and supplanting Obamacare, and has the White House's backing.

Vice President Mike Pence told a group of Missourians on Wednesday to spread the word about the Trump administration among their townsfolk.

Last Monday's dismissal of national security advisor Mike Flynn seems to have only raised more questions, and scant answers, in the ensuing week. For starters, who will replace Flynn? Nearly a week later, the Trump administration has yet to find a candidate who will take the job, although the…

At 10:30 Thursday morning, Jeff Sessions will officially be sworn in as attorney general of the United States. On a near party-line vote, 52 to 47, the Senate confirmed one of its own Wednesday night for the job of the nation's top law enforcement officer. Sessions was one of Donald Trump's…

President-elect Donald Trump may have cranked up the heat on Republican lawmakers working to repeal and replace Obamacare, telling the New York Times the two goals must be accomplished "together" in an interview published Tuesday.

President-elect Donald Trump said he has a "constructive meeting and conversation" with officials in the intelligence community Friday. Trump, who has recently cast doubts publicly about intelligence reports that Russian-supported cyber-attacks tried to influence last November's presidential…

Top GOP officials say their first order of business in the new year is to repeal and replace Obamacare. But the first order itself has a clear first step.

Politico reports:

President-elect Trump's team is being urged to kill new Food and Drug Administration rules that threaten to snuff out the e-cigarette business and rob chainsmokers of an alternative to ending their habit.

Ever on the lookout for irony, The Scrapbook's attention was drawn the other day to two stories—conven-iently situated next to one another—on the front page of the Washington Post Metro section. The first, entitled "D.C. readies for horde of inaugural protesters" (December 4), explained that…

Ever on the lookout for irony, The Scrapbook’s attention was drawn the other day to two stories—conven-iently situated next to one another—on the front page of the Washington Post Metro section. The first, entitled "D.C. readies for horde of inaugural protesters" (December 4), explained that…

Irving Kristol famously wrote in 1978 that we might offer "two cheers for capitalism"—an insight borrowed from E.M. Forster's similar suggestion about democracy. The phrase is a call for restraint among supporters of free-market economics. Kristol himself said he and his fellow neoconservative…

Among all the uses conservatives can think of for a Trump executive order or Supreme Court nominee, there's one, too often forgotten, that ought to come first. Religious freedom—scholarly and practical advocates say, in a nod to the founders—is not just the first freedom in the Bill of Rights but…

Vice President-elect Mike Pence will serve as head of Donald Trump's transition to power, replacing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, according to three sources with knowledge of the plans.

Wilmington, N.C.

Greenville, N.C.

Youngwood, Penn.

In an interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, Donald Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, complained about the independent candidacy of Evan McMullin. The conservative former CIA agent and congressional staffer has been gaining on Trump in Utah (an historically strong Republican state) and…

Bill Kristol joined MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday morning and responded to Donald Trump's refusal at the debate the previous night to say he would accept the results of the presidential election.

On Monday, Bill Kristol asked why Donald Trump can't be "dumped from the ticket."

The emergence Friday of the disgusting Trump tape was a gift to the Republican party. It provided an occasion, at the very last minute, for the party to dump a fundamentally unworthy and radically unfit nominee. At the very least it provided an occasion for the party to separate itself radically…

There is one important sense in which Donald Trump "won" the debate on Sunday night: He did not implode. He wasn't "good," or attractive, or knowledgeable. He was coarse and whiny and unpleasant. He lied constantly. And he became the first presidential candidate in the history of our Republic to…

On Sunday, Bill Kristol talked about some of the logistics of replacing Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.

Editor William Kristol's weekly Kristol Clear podcast on why Mike Pence gives conservatives worried about the future some hope, and the 2016 MLB playoffs.

Vice presidential debates don’t matter. Lloyd Bentsen was widely thought to have clobbered Dan Quayle in 1988; the Bush-Quayle ticket won easily. Vice President Quayle did well against Al Gore in 1992; the Bush-Quayle ticket lost.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on Pence's debate win, and what Trump needs to do in the remaining days and debates of the 2016 race.

During the vice-presidential debate Tuesday, Virginia senator Tim Kaine likened Hillary Clinton's stance on immigration to Ronald Reagan's 1986 immigration plan, a controversial set of reforms that, rather than cracking down on undocumented workers and heightening border security, was followed by a…

If Donald Trump had acted in the restrained and calm manner that Mike Pence did in the vice presidential debate, he might have won his debate with Hillary Clinton last week. At least he wouldn't have embarrassed himself, which is what happened in the clash with Clinton.

Farmville, Va.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Tuesday's vice presidential debate in Farmville, Virginia.

In Tuesday's vice presidential debate, one of the closing questions for Senator Tim Kaine and Governor Mike Pence was about their personal faith and potential conflicts with their roles as elected officials.

In his opening statement at Tuesday's vice presidential debate in Farmville, Virginia, Senator Tim Kaine said:

The vice presidential debate doesn't matter. It never matters. And if you want proof, consider Lloyd Bentsen. In 1988, Bentsen scored the biggest knockout blow in the history of vice presidential debates, hitting Dan Quayle in a moment so vivid that it remains the most memorable moment of the…

On several Sunday shows, those on Donald Trump's team blasted the media for focusing on the birther issue, which Trump himself made a focus of his campaign in recent days.

On Tuesday, multiple outlets reported that Donald Trump will propose six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers.

If you live in a battleground state, odds are you've seen an anti-Trump ad railing on Trump's David Duke stumble on CNN's State of the Union.

Indiana governor Mike Pence addressed a Utah policy forum Thursday at the invitation of Senator Mike Lee, who helped lead an insurgency of anti-Donald Trump delegates at the Republican National Convention just weeks ago.

A majority of registered Republican voters say that Donald Trump wasn't their party's best option for presidential nominee, a new poll from the Huffington Post and YouGov finds.

Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence pledged to campaign for the support of "never Trump" voters who have stoutly opposed the top of the ticket, focusing attention toward the GOP and Democratic agendas and away from the candidates themselves in his pitch.

Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence brushed off criticism that Trump's exhortation to "VOTE TRUMP!" in the wake of the murder Dwyane Wade's cousin, Nykea Aldridge, was offensive.

As of Wednesday night, these are the presidential candidates voters will choose from on Minnesota's ballot in November:

Mike Pence said Wednesday that Twitter doesn't "matter a hill of beans" in shaping voters' preferences for the presidential candidates, even as the man for whom he's campaigning has used the social media utility to dictate news cycles—often to his detriment—since entering the race last year.

On Thursday, Bill Kristol joined MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell to talk about Republicans supporting Donald Trump.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with deputy online editor Chris Deaton on Mike Pence's address to the GOP convention.

Cleveland

Cleveland

On Sunday, 60 Minutes aired a joint interview with Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Mike Pence. After Trump suggested that as president he would declare war on ISIS, Lesley Stahl noted, "but we did go to war, if you remember. We went to Iraq."

In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. One of the Republicans re-elected that year was Mike Pence, for a sixth term. During his campaign, Pence gave major speeches about the presidency and the Constitution, a key point of which was that President Obama was a poor…

Donald Trump announced he was delaying an expected Friday announcement of his vice presidential pick that was slated to take place in New York. Trump made the announcement on Twitter:

Republican governor Mike Pence still has not filed the necessary paperwork to withdraw himself from the governor's race that would allow him to run for vice-president, two sources inside the Indiana secretary of state's office tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Donald Trump has reportedly picked Indiana governor Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate (though it's not quite official yet). On the surface, Pence comes off as a traditional conservative Republican, and his experience both in Congress and as a governor will round out Trump's relative…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on the reports that Donald Trump has chosen Indiana governor Mike Pence to be his vice presidential candidate.

The Drudge siren is blaring that Mike Pence is Trump's VP pick. I'm not sure I believe it, though, for a couple reasons.

Donald Trump has selected Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, according to two independent reports. Both Roll Call and the Indianapolis Star are reporting the first-term Republican governor and former congressman will be Trump's pick for the vice presidency. Here's the Star:

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Donald Trump was in search of an "attack dog" as his running mate. As far as job descriptions go, that's akin to an accounting firm recruiting people who are "good with numbers"—it's obvious, and it's a prerequisite of the job. What's newsy is the…

Reports indicate Indiana governor Mike Pence is well positioned to be Donald Trump's vice-presidential selection. But a Pence spokesman says the Republican remains "focused" on his reelection campaign.

Former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels hasn't ruled out a bid for his old office should his successor, current governor Mike Pence, be named Donald Trump's running mate, THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned.

Indiana governor Mike Pence said Friday that he will vote for Ted Cruz in the upcoming Hoosier primary, qualifying his support with compliments of John Kasich and especially Donald Trump.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said Indiana governor Mike Pence was “unprepared” for the backlash to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act but defended the law as a necessary safeguard for religious liberty.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer John McCormack and the amendment to the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Several of the likely Republican candidates for president have spoken out in defense of Indiana governor Mike Pence and his decision to sign the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. CNN reports that several White House hopefuls, including Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer John McCormack on the recently-passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana, and what the media gets wrong.

Lost in much of the reporting about CPAC is that almost all of the likely presidential candidates—really, all of them, with the exception of Rand Paul—seemed to place themselves at the Reaganite hawkish-internationalist end of the foreign policy spectrum. The much-heralded return of Republican…

It’s still two years before the next president takes the oath of office, but the contest that will determine who raises his right hand that day started in earnest last month for Republicans, with a grassroots gathering in Iowa and a meeting of high-dollar donors in California.

The Washington Post catches the boss grabbing lunch. This time, he's with Indiana governor Mike Pence. As Reid Wilson reports:

Obamacare will be costly for Hoosiers who already have health insurance, according to a report from Indystar.com.

Fiscally conservative governors in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida have rejected billions of dollars in subsidies for the growth of high-speed rail and new public transportation projects in their states in recent years. Indiana’s new Republican governor, Mike Pence, may have the opportunity to make a…

Can the debt deal pass the House of Representatives? House speaker John Boehner has said he believes he has the votes from the Republican caucus, and Steny Hoyer, the Democratic minority whip, says he can deliver 80 to 100 votes from his side of the aisle. Key GOP House members who have said…

Indiana congressman Mike Pence, a stalwart conservative and former chairman of the Republican Study Committee, announced today that he will vote for the Boehner bill. Pence is joined by freshman Hoosier Marlin Stutzman, who thanked the Tea Party for pushing the country to cut more.

One storyline to emerge from the 2011 budget deal is that social conservatives were really the ones who lost. 

CNN: 

Politico's Kasie Hunt reports: 

The Hotline's Reid Wilson reports: 

Indiana congressman Mike Pence has gotten a lot of buzz as a potential GOP presidential candidate who could appeal to both establishment Republicans and Tea Partiers--social conservatives and fiscal conservatives.

As speculation grows over whether Rep. Mike Pence (R., Ind.) will run for governor or president, a number of observers have seen his concentration of scheduled events in Indiana as a sign that he'll opt for governor. On the other hand, Politico's Kasie Hunt notes that Pence is heading to South…

It may be startling to imagine the American presidency as a train that “has run off the rails.” But that’s the metaphor Indiana Republican Mike Pence chose in a speech he gave at Hillsdale College on September 20 titled “The Presidency and the Constitution.” Elected last month to his sixth term in…

George Will writes:

So here's the state of play as the Great Depression redux edges ominously closer. The Paulson Plan failed today, with a solid majority of Republicans voting against it. The opposition Republicans fall into two camps: 1) The Mike Pence doctrinaires who welcome a free market curative like a…

FOR A FORMER talk-radio host, Mike Pence sure speaks softly and politely. A three-term Indiana congressman, Pence, 47, describes himself as "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican--in that order." As head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, he's also become the sentinel of GOP…

SENATOR KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON of Texas and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana introduced a compromise immigration bill on Tuesday that amounts to the last serious opportunity for broad--or "comprehensive"--immigration reform this year. The measure is a long shot, but it has the tacit support of…

On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were there, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad participated via teleconference from Baghdad. As the…

WITH TOM DELAY ON THE sidelines, things will be different on Capitol Hill, especially for President Bush. The White House will no longer command an automatic majority in the House of Representatives--that is, the votes of nearly all 231 Republicans--on any bill the president endorses. In the…

SMALL GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVES HAVE REVOLTED against President Bush and the Republican leadership of the Senate and the House. Their goal, with hurricane recovery costs soaring, is what it's always been: to hold down spending and restrain the growth of government. It is an impossible dream or close…