What Is Mike Pence Even Doing?

Way back in December, when the government was still functioning, President Trump met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the Oval Office to discuss border security. The meeting was an unmitigated disaster, with the three party leaders sparring in front of cameras before Trump ultimately took responsibility for a potential government shutdown over border-wall funding.

If not for the memes responding to the comic lack of vibrancy he brought to the heated exchange, it would have been hard to notice that Mike Pence was there, too. As Trump, Schumer and Pelosi argued, the vice president sat motionless in his chair, his eyes fixed in the middle distance, his mind somewhere else entirely, perhaps home in Indiana. The government entered a partial shutdown 10 days later, and Pence has since been tasked with leading the administration’s negotiations with Democrats over border security. He hasn’t been much more useful than he was during that Oval Office meeting last month.

On both Saturday and Sunday, the vice president met with Democratic leaders to try to make progress regarding a resolution to re-open the government, an all but impossible task considering Democrats have maintained they will not support a spending bill that includes the $5 billion in border wall funding Trump has demanded. If that wasn’t enough, Pence did “not have the president’s blessing to float new or specific numbers” that would have been necessary to reach some any sort of agreement, according to the Washington Post. Even Trump acknowledged the negotiations were futile, telling reporters that he didn’t “expect to have anything happen at that meeting,” before absconding to Camp David for the weekend. “Ultimately, it’s going to be solved by the principals,” he added, a tacit admission that Pence has no real authority.

The Atlantic reported as much on Tuesday, noting that Pence’s sway has taken a hit as the politics surrounding the border situation have spiraled out of control. He’s been undermined by Trump on several occasions in the past month alone, leaving Democrats without any reason to take negotiations with the vice president seriously. “If you were Nancy or Chuck, why would you spend time cutting a deal that may be dismissed out of hand by the ultimate decider?” a former senior White House official told the Atlantic.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-pence-border-trump-776164/