Hey Donald Trump: don’t look now, but Mike Pence is trying to do away with you

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Earlier this week Palmer Report brought you the story of Mike Pence and his curiously deleted Twitter post. He had tweeted a photo of himself working the phones with Texas leaders as Hurricane Harvey’s wrath was unfolding. Pence must have then been afraid Donald Trump would see it and think Pence was looking too presidential, because he soon deleted it. But with the week coming near an end, Pence is no longer even trying to hide is presidential ambition.

Donald Trump took a trip to Texas this week which saw him looking anything but presidential. Instead of waiting until it was possible for him to visit the flood ravaged city of Houston, he instead quickly and opportunistically traveled to Corpus Christi – which was a few hundred miles away and left fully unharmed – where he climbed on top of a firetruck and bragged about the size of the crowd. The trip did him no favors, leaving him looking worse off than if he’d simply stayed home. Now Mike Pence has decided to step up to the plate in light of Trump’s failure.

Pence traveled to Texas on Thursday and went straight into areas that had been hit hard. He put on work gloves. He rolled up his sleeves. He hugged people. He went door to door and talked with residents, according to the local Houston Chronicle (link). In other words, Pence acted how a president is supposed to act. He acted like every modern president has acted. Of course it’s nothing more than an act, as Pence is a borderline sociopath who doesn’t care about anyone, as his legislative history has made shamefully clear, but at least he had the sense to go and play the part of a human. That’s in contrast to Donald Trump, who couldn’t even bring himself to pretend to connect with storm victims on a human level.

When the week began, Mike Pence seemed to be hedging his bets about how much he wanted to flex his presidential muscles. But by week’s end he was in Houston, doing Donald Trump’s job for him, auditioning for a role that he thinks he might end up inheriting if and when Trump is ousted. At this point Pence is no longer even bothering to hide how badly he wants to take Trump’s job from him. It took him all of five days to get there. Perhaps Pence has forgotten that the Democrats have Russia dirt on him too.