In their first interview since announcing their joint presidential campaign, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” Sunday and, well, it was uncomfortable. Sitting with correspondentLeslie Stahl in Trump’s penthouse apartment, the duo chatted about foreign policy, their joint campaign, the opposition and the upcoming election. But, despite constant insistence they had “chemistry,” Pence’s and Trump’s relationship seems anything but. On his running mate,Trump admitted that selecting Pence was a move to appease the Republican Party’s establishment wing.
“It was party unity. I’m an outsider.People I wasn’t necessarily getting along with are loving this pick,” Trump said, adding that he mainly chose Pence for his “incredible job” he did as Indiana governor. But discordance between the two, who announced their union last week, is still painfully evident. Pence and Trump have historically disagreed on several political points, namely the Iraq War.
In 2002, then President George W. Bush sought Congress’ authorization to invade Iraq, which at the time claimed it was making progress toward building a nuclear weapon.
Pence, who was a first-term congressman at the time, voted in favor of the use of force resolution.So did then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, a vote that Trump has made a hallmark of his argument against Clinton in the 2016 election. But on Pence’s vote, Trump said, “I don’t care.”
When Stahl pressed, Trump added: “It’s a long time ago. And he voted that way and they were also misled. A lot of information was given to people.”
A mistake forwhich he’s giving Pence a free pass, but not Clinton.
“It’s probably obvious to people we have different styles,” Pence later said. “I promise our vision is exactly the same.”
Those styles Pence is talking about might refer to their campaigning methods. In a 1991issue of Indiana Policy Review, Pence wrote a manifesto decrying Trump-style campaigning and apologizing for running negative ads in his own quest for a congressional seat. But when Stahl questioned Pence’s support of Trump, the vice presidential pick wrote off Trump’s often negative tone:
“I think this is a good man who’s been talking about the issues the American people care about … in that … in the essay that I wrote a long time ago, I said campaigns ought to be about something more important than just one candidate’s election.And this campaign and Donald Trump’s candidacy has been about the issues the American people care about.” Last December, Pence and Trump butted heads on another hallmark of Trump’s platform: a ban on Muslims.
In wake of the San Bernardino attack last winter in which a couple, allegedly self-radicalized and inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, killed 14 people and injured 22, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Pence didn’t agree, tweeting on Dec. 8, 2015, that “calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.”
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015
Since news broke that Pence is Trump’s VP pick, Pence has since walked back that stance, telling FOX News’ Sean Hannity that he supports a temporary suspension of immigration from terroristic countries. Over the course of this 20-minute interview, we also learn that the two differ on free trade deals, and may or may not see eye-to-eye on military torture tactics.
What Pence made clear, though, is that he thinks Trump is a “good man,” a statement he iterated several times in their interview.
