What the hell is going on with Mike Pence today?
Ever since “Trump 2020” campaign posters surfaced without Mike Pence’s name on it, there has been steady buzz building that Donald Trump might be considering replacing Pence on the ticket. That speculation has seemed like little more than yet another distraction. But today, a bizarre series of events involving Pence is raising questions about whether something might truly be going on behind the scenes.
It all started when multiple major media outlets reported that Mike Pence’s planned flight to a New Hampshire fundraiser had to turn around in mid-air and return to the White House due to an “emergency.” Various reports claimed that it was a security decision made by the Secret Service, and that it had nothing to do with Pence’s health. Then the story changed, and Pence’s flight supposedly never took off to begin with, and he never left Washington, again due to a still-unspecified emergency.
So what’s really going on? Your guess is as good as anyone else’s. The real story of what happened with Mike Pence, or most of it at least, will eventually get tracked down by the media. For now, what stands out is that no one can get their story straight. When a confusing development first takes place, the media can get caught off guard and make mistakes simply due to the speed at which things are happening. But in this instance the media has gotten the story wrong in so many ways, which usually points to misinformation being purposely released by the White House in the hope of burying the real story.
So now we’re looking at a bizarre “Mike Pence emergency” and possible attempt at a coverup today, just as the narratives about Trump ditching Pence from the ticket have reached their peak. And why the oddly specific denial about Pence’s health? Maybe it’s nothing. But this administration never met a ham-fisted stunt it didn’t like. It raises the question of whether the White House is manufacturing today’s “emergency” as a way of laying the groundwork to dump Pence after all. We’ll see.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report