According to a weekend report from the New York Times, Trump has been more inquisitive than ever of his aides regarding his second in command, asking them if they think Mike Pence is “loyal” with such frequency that it’s beginning to alarm others inside the West Wing.
Trump’s advisers are starting to take note of how much concern Trump is showing toward Pence’s “allegiance” to him, which to them often signals the President is convinced someone has outlived their usefulness.
Could that mean a replacement for the Vice President on the 2020 ticket? Some have discussed former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley as a possible replacement, though nothing even remotely official has surfaced along those lines.
But it could be that Trump is taking even more care to distance himself from the Russia probe — and it is now widely known that Pence was hand-picked by a campaign manager now considered as toxic as human baggage can be: Convicted felon Paul Manafort, who will be spending years in prison for his financial and political crimes.
In a statement to reporters, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that Trump
…absolutely supports the vice president and thinks he’s doing an incredible job helping to carry out the mission and policies of this administration.”
Of course, that is on par with any and all previous statements from this administration that have ultimately been superseded by subsequent statements.
All we know here at DC Tribune is that every time we’ve written about Trump going on a kick like this in the past, we have followed up shortly thereafter with a story about the sacking of the individual in question.
Obviously Trump can’t “sack” Mike Pence, but without a solid statement that the two are currently seeing eye to eye, we aren’t so sure he doesn’t at least privately want to.
Featured image via screen capture
