FORT ZEALOTTA, VIRGINIA — Republican Vice-Presidential candidate and Indiana Governor Mike Pence was largely regarded by most pundits as the winner of his debate with Senator Tim Kaine. However, the large majority of them agree that Pence won by essentially ducking the elephant — or perhaps in this case, the angry orangutan — in the room. When Kaine would press Pence on something his running mate, alleged billionaire Donald Trump, has said in the past about women, Muslims, and Mexican immigrants, Pence would either deny Trump said those things, or would seemingly deflect and ignore.
This morning at a campaign event in Virginia, Pence fielded questions from reporters about the debate, and revealed at least a partial reason for why it seemed he wasn’t aware of his potential future boss’s own words.
“I don’t follow him on Twitter no,” Pence told one reporter who asked if he’d reviewed Trump’s tweets before the debate, in an effort to be more aware of who it was he was teaming-up with. “And frankly, I don’t see how his twitter timeline, full of misogynistic, racist, and downright mean tweets, has anything to do with me. Isn’t this election about two people — Trump and me? So, all I’m saying is maybe voters should focus on me, and not whatever vile, disgusting crap may or may not be in his Twitter timeline, which again, I’ve never even remotely seen.”
During one moment in the debate, Senator Kaine alluded to the fact that in April Trump postulated that in order to make the world safer, more — not fewer — countries should have nuclear weapons. Pence flatly denied that his boss said such such a thing, though there is ample record of Trump’s musings. During today’s campaign rally, Pence addressed that moment.
“Do you think I read anything he says just because he’s the guy I’ve decided to forever link my own political legacy to,” Pence asked reporters incredulously, “I didn’t read him saying those things, or hear it. And if I don’t read it with my own two, squinted eyes, or hear it with my own two ears, in my religious fundamentalist mind, it didn’t happen.”
In another debate exchange, Pence got irritated when Kaine kept bringing up what Trump said about Mexican immigrants at the start of his campaign. Saying Kaine was bringing up “that Mexican thing” over and over, he seemed incredulous that Kaine failed to give Trump credit for his platitude at the end of the now infamous speech.
“You know, when Donald said that Mexico is sending drug dealers, rapists, and murderers into this country on purpose,” Pence said, “that was pretty harsh and over the top. But he made it all better, in fact turned it into a very positive and uplifting speech about Mexicans, when he said that he assumed that some of them were good people too. If I take a shit in a bag and then stuff a pearl into the bag of shit, doesn’t that make the bag of shit a good thing? Well, that’s what Donald’s cheap compliment at the end was about…so I hear…because, again, I don’t ever listen to him. Ever.”
Follow James on Twitter @JamboSchlarmbo.
