October 10, 2019

Mike Pence seems to be afflicted with the same horrific and highly contagious disease that is plaguing the Republican Party for the last 3 years - deafness, illiteracy and dementia. Not only do the GOP pretend to not be able to read tweets, but they pretend to have never heard interviews or statements made or simply forget meetings they were in or calls they participated in.

Here we see Robot Mike Pence pretending with his best "concerned VP" expression to actually be listening to NBC's Vaughn Hillyard's question while providing a memorized statement that doesn't quite answer the question that was JUST ASKED 30 seconds before.

MOHYELDIN: All right, breaking news at the moment. New video from Vice President Mike Pence, repeatedly questioned if he knew the reason Donald Trump held up aid to Ukraine was to pressure them for dirt on the Bidens. And over and over again, the Vice President wouldn't answer. Watch this in its entirety.

(clip)

HILLYARD: Were you aware, Mr. Vice President, an interest in the Bidens, the interest in investigating the Bidens, at least part of the reason for aid to Ukraine being withheld?

PENCE: I never discussed the issue of the issue of the Bidens with President Zelensky.

HILLYARD: Were you ever aware?

PENCE: What I can tell you is that all of our discussions internally, the President and our team, and our context, in my office with Ukraine, were entirely focused on the broader issues of the lack of European support and corruption.

HILLYARD: Were you interested in the Bidens being investigated? Is that tied to aid to Ukraine being held up?

PENCE: That's your question, let me be very clear. The issue of aid and our efforts with regard to Ukraine were, from my experience, in no way connected to the very legitimate concern the American people have about corruption that took place, about things that happened in the 2016 election in Ukraine, or about --

(end clip)

MOHYELDIN: All right, joining me now is New York Times political correspondent Nicholas Confessore, and Jason Johnson. Nick, let me begin with your reaction to that video because the significance of it is simply he hears the question. It is asked multiple times of him. It's a very specific and pointed question -- "Did you know about aid being held up in order to investigate the Bidens?" -- the fact that he doesn't answer that yes or no, it's very simple. He does not answer that. What does it tell you?

CONFESSORE: The Vice President is a seasoned and practiced politician. What you saw there was him drawing a line between what he saw and heard and what he did. and I think I also -- I was hearing him talk about corruption and what we know is the administration had established as a code word - "corruption" - let's talk about the Bidens without talking about the Bidens. It's not clear to me exactly what he denied there.

MOHYELDIN: Do you know, I'm sure having covered politics, this is a question he's going to be asked about again tomorrow, throughout the day. Can he continue to dodge this question or do you think the Vice President's office is trying to now figure out what is the best way to come out and answer this going forward?

CONFESSORE: It's always possible. You know, it's entirely unclear if documents from the Veep's office will end up in the hands of investigators, but there are lots of people who work in the White House, work for the Vice President, who advise him on national security, and there's going to be a paper trail and people who understand what he knew and when he knew it. if that account is inaccurate, we'll eventually find out.

MOHYELDIN: Jason, when you look at the President's men who are being embroiled in this, from those who serve overseas to those in the White House, is Mike Pence trying to create distance from the scandal with the way he answered the question?

JOHNSON: I believe so, but it's not going to work. Look, either Mike Pence is the dumbest guy in the White House who seems completely oblivious to everything that's happening at all times, or he's completely aware of it and is simply trying to portray himself as this innocent dove in the woods in case something happens and he might be the last man standing in this administration. Remember, we still have not heard the transcript of his conversations with Zelensky which he says the White House is currently working on. It's very hard to believe he did not hear the scuttlebutt in the White House where this funding was going.

The good news is that in impeachment hearings in Congress, there won't be any choppers in the background and none of the witnesses can pretend to be deaf, dumb or blind. Well, that is not true. They probably will pretend to be those things...hopefully they won't all get away with it.

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