The Shadow President

by Michael D'Antonio

  Some of the departures were Trump’s doing, and some came as members of his team simply reached the limit of what they could stand. Economic advisor Gary Cohn approached his breaking point in the summer of 2017, when Trump remarked “fine people” were among the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. Cohn, who is Jewish, faced what he later acknowledged was a “frenzy of criticism” when he did not speak out immediately. Finally, he said this: “Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK.” He remained on board with Trump when the president pushed his ban against Muslims coming to the United States. But Cohn, the former chairman of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, reached the tipping point in March 2018 and resigned when Trump called for broad import tariffs on steel and aluminum, anathema to free-trade Republicans.

  The Wall Street Journal reported a 34 percent turnover of staff at the White House, compared to the previous record in the first year of an administration—17 percent in Ronald Reagan’s first year in 1981. Many more departures would come in 2018. Pence had an unusual number of departures among his own top-level staff, though none were described as firings. Among those who left was Pence’s longtime chief of staff, Josh Pitcock, who went to work as a lobbyist for the technology company Oracle.

  A longtime loyalist, Pitcock had served Pence for years. His departure was a sign of a new regime taking over. He was admired by the rest of the staff for his steady, gentle demeanor and his solid focus on policy. Pitcock was replaced by Nick Ayers, a thirty-five-year-old, high-powered Republican campaign strategist who was close to David and Charles Koch. Staff members said the arrival of Ayers marked a new reality, that Pence would now graduate to a different political level. He had the connections and the “sharp elbows”—everybody used the term as his nickname—to help Pence in an arena that called for the toughest political style. It was not, however, a style that matched the Pence brand as many understood it. After Pitcock left, others followed him out the door, concerned that Pence had sold himself to ambition at the expense of ideals.

  Among others who served Pence for just a brief time were the vice president’s counsel, Mark Paoletta; the associate counsel, Andrew Kossack; press secretary Lotter; and Daris Meeks, Pence’s director of domestic policy. One of the strangest departures from Pence’s staff was the resignation of Dr. Jennifer Peña, a U.S. Army physician who had complained about the comportment of the White House medical director, U.S. Navy rear admiral Ronny Jackson. Jackson had been nominated to run the Department of Veterans Affairs but withdrew amid charges of misconduct.

  The vice president’s aides did their utmost to steer clear of the Trump turmoil. When they did talk, insiders denied strife in their ranks. One made a special point of saying that Ayers, the new chief of staff, was not a source of friction. “He’s great. I got along very well with him,” said this source, not willing to be identified in any way. There was a tinge of fear in the way he dismissed any problem with Ayers, a power broker who everyone knew could be a dangerous antagonist. Staffers willing to speak at all drew the line on discussing any controversy, especially questions about Trump and concerns that the chaos he created could bleed into the vice president’s office. “I don’t want to be involved with [special counsel Robert] Mueller,” said one, hastening to add that this was not to indicate there was a problem.

  The touchiness raised obvious questions about Pence’s strategy for dealing with Trump. Staffers worried that they and Pence could be tainted by further revelations of wrongdoing. In this case, the vice president’s flattery of Trump and loyalty could backfire. This danger was noted by Joel Goldstein, a law professor and specialist on the vice presidency at Saint Louis University.

  “All vice presidents, and not just Pence, work to develop and preserve rapport with that special constituency of one,” wrote Goldstein. The difference was that “most recent vice presidents have largely demonstrated their loyalty without seeming servile.” Pence’s behavior was risky. “It potentially undermines Pence’s credibility to hitch his star to such an unpopular and controversial president.”8

  Through all the turmoil, Pence, the one person in the administration who could not be fired, did not publicly object to anything the president said or did. In the case of Charlottesville, he said, “I stand with the president,” even though one of the neo-Nazis had driven his car into the crowd and killed Heather Heyer, thirty-two, as she participated in a peaceful counterprotest. In a pastoral tone, he said, “Our hearts are in Charlottesville. Because just a few short hours ago, family and friends gathered to say farewell to a remarkable young woman, Heather Heyer, and we’ve been praying. We’ve been praying for God’s peace and comfort for her family and her friends and her loved ones.” On the same day, Heyer’s mother rejected the idea that sympathy for her would serve a purpose. “You can’t wash this one away,” said Susan Bro, “by shaking my hand and saying, ‘I’m sorry.’”

  The vice president had offered his condolences during a visit to Chile, where he met with President Michelle Bachelet, and he encouraged the Chilean leader to join an international effort to isolate North Korea. President Trump was in the middle of a war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over Kim’s rapid development and testing to both nuclear weapons and rockets to deliver them. Adding trade sanctions to bellicose rhetoric—threatening “fire and fury”—that rattled the world, Trump needed someone to play good cop to his bad—or rather, crazy—cop, and Pence was the logical choice. Beginning in the summer of 2017, the vice president would be dispatched to not only reassure nations but also rally them to the American cause.

  Pence seemed to enjoy moving around the world in ways that Trump did not. Notoriously committed to his habits, Trump did not like to travel abroad, and as his early performances in the Middle East and Europe would show, he wasn’t very effective in global gatherings. Images of Trump riding a golf cart while other leaders walked in Sicily and his daughter Ivanka occupying his chair at a summit in Germany sent the wrong kind of message for a president who wanted the world to see him as a vigorous man ever in command. In this atmosphere, Pence’s ability to project calm and smile benignly proved to be a reliable asset. Trump was an outsized personality who drew protests and would not hold reliably to a script prepared for him by his aides. Pence could travel with a smaller retinue and with a smaller security contingent. He could perform in a quiet way that was not possible for Trump and was also more normal in the diplomatic world.

  In the meantime, Americans were tossed by the mood swings of Donald Trump, which were displayed in his Twitter comments and then dissected on cable news. Day after day, it was Trump against the Justice Department, Trump against a porn actress, Trump and his worst instincts. Then, on October 8, Trump decided to dive into a controversy involving players in the National Football League, who were making a political point about the treatment of African Americans by police by sometimes kneeling during the national anthem. True to form, Trump made the issue into a weapon in his political culture war, declaring, “If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!”

  No one could be mistaken about the racial implications of a president who had praised neo-Nazis in Charlottesville going after athletes protesting the treatment of black men. The vice president dutifully followed a script prepared for him by attending a game in Indianapolis between the Colts and the San Francisco 49ers. Colin Kaepernick, the 49ers quarterback until 2016 who had quietly begun the kneeling protests, had found himself out of a job after it spread around the league. Trump railed against Kaepernick and any player who emulated him, and he deputized Pence to make the point. Just before the start of the game, Pence, wearing a suit jacket emblazoned with an American flag pin, stood with hand over his heart. Karen, also hand over heart, wore a blue number
18 Colts jersey, in honor of Peyton Manning, who had played in Indianapolis and whose number was being retired. After they saw that several 49ers had in fact knelt during the anthem, Pence and Karen gathered up their retinue and left the stadium.

  Trump soon revealed that Pence’s stunt was preplanned, tweeting, “I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen.”

  Pence’s participation in Trump’s drama cost around $250,000 in public funds. Others noted details of the staging. One reporter was warned ahead of time to avoid going into Lucas Oil Stadium, where the game was played, because Pence and Karen likely would be leaving early.

  The football game stunt suggested Pence was little more than a prop in the president’s drama. Pence rarely failed to support Trump, but he would in the case of GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama. Nominated to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Moore was the subject of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. A few days before the December 12 election, Trump went down to Pensacola, Florida, the media market just a few miles from the Alabama border, and spoke for him at a big rally. “We need a Republican in the House, we need a Republican in the Senate. We need more of them,” he said.

  Initially, Trump, Pence, and the Republican hierarchy saw no alternative but to support Moore, who was a shoo-in against Democrat Doug Jones. (No Alabama Democrat had represented the state in the U.S. Senate for twenty years.) However, when a series of women began providing details about their liaisons with Moore when he was a young prosecutor, many in the GOP, including Pence, refused to show support for him. Pence’s spokesperson, Alyssa Farah, said, “The vice president found the allegations in the story disturbing and believes, if true, this would disqualify anyone from serving in office.”9

  When the ballots were cast, Doug Jones eked out a victory over Moore. Given GOP dominance in the state and the president’s active campaign on Moore’s behalf, Jones’s win was widely regarded as a repudiation of Trump. On January 3, 2018, Pence performed his ceremonial duty of swearing in Jones at the Capitol. News reports made much of the image of Jones’s gay son, Carson, who knew of Pence’s judgmental regard for anyone who is not heterosexual, casting a withering gaze at Pence during the ceremony.

  Days after the swearing in, Mike and Karen Pence left Washington for a rescheduled Middle East trip to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. The visit had been postponed when Trump suddenly announced his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision sparked criticism from Democrats and many European leaders who thought it was an ill-timed, even amateurish diplomatic move. When the criticism faded, Pence embarked with the public intention of making foreign policy points in all three countries and the private goal of expressing his religious fervor in the Holy Land.

  12

  GOOD COP/CRAZY COP

  Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars.

  —2 Chronicles 14:7

  Mike Pence moved so stiffly, his face frozen in a half smile, that he seemed like a wax museum version of himself. The occasion was a speech at the Israeli Knesset, and he had dressed for the occasion with a tie that matched the sky-blue color of the Star of David on the Israeli flag that hung nearby. His white hair and dusty pink complexion echoed the hue of the off-white limestone walls of the parliament hall. His placid gaze was as unyielding as stone. This moment, which came in January 2018, mattered to Pence on many levels—religious, political, personal—and he played it as if it represented the destiny God had chosen for him.

  The context for Pence’s appearance at the Knesset was astoundingly complex. First of all, the Middle East trip was a clear sign that the vice president would have an outsized role as the soft voice in the Trump administration. Where Trump’s bombastic outbursts brought fear of miscues and diplomatic embarrassment, Pence knew how to stay within the bounds of civility, while always paying tribute to the ego-driven president. Meanwhile, a visit to Israel had deep religious meaning for Pence. Conservative evangelicals considered Israel essential to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the return of Jesus to rule the Earth. Disagreement raged over just how events would unfold but no doubt attended the idea that the establishment of Jerusalem as a Jewish capital was part of the story.

  In America, conservative Christians had also elevated concern about the treatment of the faithful in the Middle East. In October, Pence had met in Washington with a group called In Defense of Christians for a discussion of the prejudice and discrimination suffered by their brethren in the region. Pence had embraced their cause in terms that left no doubt that he was one of them.

  “Nearly two thousand years ago, the disciples of Jesus left their home country,” he said to the Israelis. “They left their land, radiating outward from Israel in every direction, bringing with them the Good News that is proclaimed to this day. But sadly today, Christianity is under unprecedented assault in those ancient lands where it first grew.… President Trump and I see these crimes for what they are—vile acts of persecution animated by hatred for Christians and the Gospel of Christ. And so too does this president know who and what has perpetrated these crimes, and he calls them by name—radical Islamic terrorists.”1

  Pence had originally planned to visit the Middle East at Christmas so he could draw attention to the plight of Christians in the region. However, Trump had announced that the United States officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would soon move its embassy there from Tel Aviv. Previous administrations had not made this move out of respect for the fact that Muslims also regarded Jerusalem as a spiritual home. Daniel Kurtzer, who had served as U.S. ambassador to Egypt during the Clinton administration and as ambassador to Israel during the Bush administration, said that Trump’s announcement had diminished the U.S. role in peace talks. It also encouraged the creation of more Israeli settlements in the West Bank, on previously Palestinian land, which was a practice that had long angered Palestinians and their allies.

  Pence and his brain trust had worked hard on a game plan for the trip. One of his key advisors on this matter was Tom Rose, a former Indiana radio host and ardent conservative. His family, prominent in the Jewish community, had donated to Pence’s political campaigns. Rose had proven his loyalty by defending Pence when he was chosen to be vice president. In that moment, Indianapolis rabbi Dennis C. Sasso of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck published an article saying that “Indiana Jews have long been repelled by Mike Pence’s anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant, anti-choice stances.” Sasso wrote that while he presented himself as a “pleasant and amiable person,” Pence had “countered the very foundations of religious and moral values he purports to advance.” Rose, who described himself as Pence’s “closest personal friend for over 25 years,” publicly defended Pence by accusing Sasso of trying to “smear and defame one of the best friends the State of Israel and the Jewish people have ever had. This is an attempt to rob a good and decent man of his most valuable possession, an attempt to rob him of his good name,” Rose said. “A world in which good people are called bad and bad people are called good.”2

  Rose was not just a fierce loyalist. Before being ousted amid charges of having an abusive management style, Rose had been publisher of The Jerusalem Post.3 This position had given him access to Israeli experts and officials and permitted him to build a base of knowledge about Middle East politics. He was, himself, a controversial figure and aided Pence in a low-profile way. His profile was so low that colleagues on the vice president’s staff wondered how he spent his time. However, his influence was substantial, and Pence relied on him so much that he was added to the entourage that boarded Air Force Two at Andrews Air Force Base and took off for Cairo, which would be the first of Pence’s three stops.

  Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had warned Trump directly on the Jerusalem move to no avail. Once the announcement had been made, Sisi promoted the UN resolution to condemn the Uni
ted States. However, he had to balance politics with economic reality. Egypt received more than $1 billion in U.S. foreign aid yearly, a result of the 1979 U.S.-brokered peace between Egypt and Israel. When he met with Pence, the Egyptian president said that the embassy move would complicate and possibly unravel peace efforts that had been undertaken by the current U.S. point man on this issue, Jared Kushner.

  (In typical fashion, Trump relied on Kushner not because he was experienced or expert—he wasn’t either—but because he was a loyal family member. Unsurprisingly, the thirty-six-year-old Kushner became embroiled in a series of problems, which prevented him from doing much of anything. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was investigating Kushner’s role in the Russian influence scandal, and he was dogged by conflicts of interest. One of these conflicts involved his role as director of his parents’ foundation—the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation—which had funded an Israeli settlement on land Palestinians claimed.)

  Publicly, Pence tried to reassure the world that the United States was still committed to a two-state solution—one Israeli, one Palestinian—that would ease tensions. He also tried to calm fears that Muslims would lose access to Jerusalem, saying the United States was “absolutely committed to preserving the status quo with regard to holy sites in Jerusalem, that we have come to no final resolution about boundaries or other issues that will be negotiated.” However, in his time with Sisi, reassurances about holy sites only went so far. “We heard President al-Sisi out,” Pence said after their meeting. “He said to me about what he said publicly about a disagreement between friends over our decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”4

  At Pence’s next stop, in Jordan, a most reliable U.S. ally, King Abdullah, also warned that Trump’s decision on Jerusalem was simply a mistake. Seated across the table from Pence, the king argued that Trump may have damaged the chances for a two-state solution and that the tinderbox of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a source of further radicalization in Arab countries. A decision on Jerusalem was intended to be a final step in a successful negotiation, not a preemptive move to support Israel. “The U.S. decision on Jerusalem … does not come as a result of a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Abdullah told Pence. At the end of the visit, Pence said, “We had agreed to disagree.”5