Fox News is pretending that Donald Trump’s refusal to endorse his own vice president, Mike Pence, for president in 2024 is just like former President Barack Obama refraining from endorsing his former vice president, Joe Biden. Of course, there’s a huge difference.
During his 50-minute birthday chat with his Fox Friends on Friday, cohost Steve Doocy asked, “If Mike Pence runs for president in 2024, does he have your automatic endorsement?”
Trump made it very clear that despite all those adoring glances, Pence has no such assurance:
TRUMP: Well, it's far too -- look, I love Mike. We're running again. But, you know, you're talking about a long time. So you can't put me in that position.
But I --I certainly would give it very strong consideration.
[…]
He's a very, very outstanding person.
Not surprisingly, that comment raised some eyebrows. Just as unsurprisingly, Fox News jumped to the rescue. Or tried to do so.
In an article called, “Some in media sound alarm on Trump not yet endorsing Pence in 2024,” reporter Joseph A. Wulfsohn made it out to be just a case of media bias:
Several members of the media believe there's "trouble in paradise" between President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence after Trump refrained from endorsing his running mate in 2024 during an appearance on Fox.
At the same time, former President Obama has so far failed to endorse his Vice President, Joe Biden, who is currently running for president.
Wolfsuhn also noted this tweet from reporter Jonathan Allen:
There was lots of online speculation in response to Allen’s tweet: that Trump will refuse to leave office; that he wants to run again in 2024 if he loses in 2020; that he wants to pass the job on to one of his kids. Sadly, each of those scenarios is all too plausible.
But the one thing that isn’t plausible is the comparison to Obama. For one thing, Biden is not currently the next in line to the presidency. Not only is Pence in that position but, as Allen noted in his tweet, by campaigning with Pence as VP, Trump is basically signaling that Pence is merely "good for now," not best.
Also, there is a large field of Democratic contenders and Obama is working toward party unity and therefore does not want to endorse or not endorse any candidate other than the eventual Democratic nominee. However, in 2024, Pence will be the heir apparent.
Sad!
And, by the way, check out how Doocy points out that the interview has lasted 32 minutes along with cohost Ainsley Earhardt’s look of “When is this guy going to get off the phone?” Well, not yet, Ainsley. When Trump finally did hang up, Doocy said, “All right, we thought that interview might go 10 minutes. It went 50 minutes and 20 seconds.” But who's counting?
Don’t forget, at the beginning of the interview, Trump told his Trump Friends that he was too busy working to celebrate his birthday that day.
Published with permission of NewsHounds.us
