Looks like Donald Trump really is trying to dump Mike Pence from the 2020 ticket
Before Donald Trump held his press conference today, there was a lot of speculation about who his pick might be for “coronavirus czar.” The thing is, Trump knows that his administration’s response to the outbreak will be a failure. Even if he gets lucky and the virus doesn’t spread in the United States, the worldwide economic impact will hit the U.S. hard, and the Trump regime’s response to the worldwide epidemic will be seen as a failure.
Specifically, Trump’s coronavirus czar will seen as a scapegoat. He knew he was picking a fall guy today. So who drew the unlucky straw? Remarkably, Mike Pence. This is interesting to say the least. There’s no way around it, Trump is setting up Pence to fail. Trump has slipped badly in the cognitive department of late, but even he can’t be delusional enough to believe that the coronavirus mess will go well for him. So why on earth would Trump decide to scapegoat Pence?
Sure, it could be out of pure spite and cruelty. But really, Donald Trump is heading into reelection, and even he’s not whacked out enough to pointlessly damage the reputation of his running mate out of spite. Instead, there has to be more going on here. There’s been media buzz for a long time that Trump would like to replace Mike Pence on the 2020 ticket. We’ve never really believed that was a possibility – until just now.
Think about it. Donald Trump puts Mike Pence in charge of the coronavirus response, knowing it’ll go wrong no matter who’s in charge of it. Pence’s reputation gets so damaged, even Pence’s Republican allies end up reluctantly concluding that they should let Trump pick a new running mate. They’re not going to let Trump pick his own daughter, or anything quite so on-the-nose. But they would allow him to pick someone like Nikki Haley.
Donald Trump didn’t want Mike Pence the first time around, and was only pressured into it by Paul Manafort, who’s now in prison. Pence may have helped Trump get the evangelical vote in 2016, but by now, the ever narcissistic Trump has surely decided that he got all those evangelical votes himself, so he doesn’t need Pence again. He sees multiple women running on the Democratic side, figures one will end up on the Democratic ticket, and – in his simplistic sexist mind – thinks he needs to pick a Republican woman for his running mate. Either that, or Trump put Pence in charge of the coronavirus mess today for absolutely no reason. Take your pick.
