What happened

Donald Trump "resorted to crimes to try to stay in office" after losing the 2020 presidential race, special counsel Jack Smith argued in a court filing unsealed Wednesday. And Trump's "increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results" were "fundamentally private" in nature, not "official" acts deemed immune from prosecution under a recent Supreme Court ruling. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan released the redacted 165-page brief over Trump's objections.

Who said what

Smith's "explosive" filing "offers a searing portrayal of Trump" as he tried to cling to power, The Washington Post said, even as Mike Pence, campaign officials and lawyers, and Republican state officials told him "there was no proof the election was stolen." None of the "new details were game-changing revelations," said The New York Times, "but they add further texture to the available history" of Trump's actions leading up to Jan. 6, 2021.

Three White House aides and an FBI forensic computer examiner revealed that Trump was alone in his Oval Office dining room, watching his followers storm the Capitol on Fox News and Twitter, when he personally posted his tweet accusing Pence of lacking the "courage" to block certification of President Joe Biden's electoral victory, the filing said. "One minute later, the Secret Service was forced to evacuate Pence to a secure location in the Capitol." When an aide then rushed in to tell Trump that his vice president was in danger, the brief recounted, Trump "looked at him and said only, 'So what?'"

Trump's campaign called the filing's release "unconstitutional," and Trump told NewsNation "they should have never allowed the information" to "come before the public."

What next?

Trump's team asked Chutkan to extend the deadline for their response to Nov. 21. Chutkan will consider both arguments, the Times said, and determine which parts of Smith's indictment "survive the Supreme Court's immunity ruling." The case is "likely to make its way back to the Supreme Court," the Post said. And "if Trump wins the election, he is widely expected to order the Justice Department to end the case."

A presidential nominee's choice of a running mate is one of the more high-profile decisions made prior to the general election. Political science research shows that these choices have limited impact, but in the kinds of agonizingly close elections that have characterized American presidential politics for most of this century, running mates can be consequential. 

The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, is vetting her short list, and GOP nominee Donald Trump selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) earlier this month. Vance has subsequently come under fire for a series of controversial statements over the previous few years, fueling speculation that Trump might dump him from the ticket before it is too late. While it is much too early to say whether Vance will help or harm the Trump campaign, modern history is full of running mates who either helped the ticket across the finish line — or turned out to be a drag on losing campaigns. 

The best picks compensate for a nominee's weaknesses

George H.W. Bush (1980): In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan's brand of social and fiscal conservatism was in the process of taking over the GOP. But the party still included millions of moderates who were uncomfortable with the hawkish Reagan and considered him too extreme. So Reagan took the unusual step of tapping his moderate rival for the nomination, former U.S. Rep. and C.I.A. Director George H.W. Bush, as his running mate. Bush, who would later run successfully for the nomination and win the presidency in 1988, was from the Republican old guard of social liberals. He helped make voters comfortable with Reagan, who only a few years earlier was considered a firebrand who might accidentally start a nuclear war with the Soviets. The soft-spoken Bush ultimately helped Reagan deliver one of the worst defeats of an incumbent in American history when they vanquished Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a landslide. 

Mike Pence (2016): Critics derided him as "Mike Dense" and mocked Trump's selection of the pious incumbent governor of Indiana. But the staid and steady Pence helped solidify support from white evangelical voters – perhaps the single most important Republican voting bloc – who were uncomfortable with Trump's personal history as a twice-divorced man with a reputation for womanizing. When the infamous Access Hollywood tape that included Trump talking about sexually assaulting women was leaked to the press in October 2016, Pence's standing on the ticket may have made it possible for Trump to survive the episode. Pence's wife, Karen, told him that she "would no longer appear in public if he carried on as Trump's running mate," after hearing the tape, said journalist Tim Alberta. But Pence stuck with Trump, and together they won the election, in part by winning 80% of white evangelical voters, according to exit polls. 

Al Gore (1992): After 12 years of Republican control of the White House and three straight blowout presidential losses, Democrats were desperate to get their nominee right – especially because the incumbent, George H.W. Bush, looked increasingly vulnerable as the party conventions approached. Already dogged by allegations of extra-marital affairs (and possibly worse), Democrats worried that their nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, would be seen as too liberal despite his status as one of the early members of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Gore, a Tennessee senator, was also a charter member of that centrist Democratic group, which wanted to move away from the party's reliance on a brand of liberalism that had become unpopular. Clinton gambled that a young ticket of self-styled ideological moderates would persuade the electorate to once again trust Democrats with the country's highest office, and they were proven right when they won the election decisively.

The worst picks compensate for the wrong problem

Sarah Palin (2008): Palin is the ultimate cautionary tale in running mate selection lore. GOP nominee John McCain, a longtime Arizona senator with a carefully cultivated image as a "maverick," wanted to pick his friend and longtime colleague Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) as his running mate. But Republican strategists feared that the party's base would revolt, and McCain impulsively chose the little-known Palin to increase enthusiasm from the conservative wing of the party. Despite an electric debut at the Republican National Convention, Palin later gave a series of disastrous interviews in the following weeks that led to her enduring Saturday Night Live caricature as an intellectual lightweight. In one infamous exchange, Palin was unable to tell CBS's Katie Couric the names of any newspapers that she read. As the campaign dragged on, even Palin's own staff grew frustrated with her and voters began to doubt her credibility as a possible successor to McCain, who would be 72 by Election Day. McCain went on to lose to Democratic nominee Barack Obama by 7.3 points. The "Palin effect," ultimately "cost McCain almost 2% of the final vote share," according to one 2010 study

Tim Kaine (2016): Riding high in public opinion polls and watching Republicans make the seemingly suicidal choice of Donald Trump as their nominee, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton decided to pick Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) as her running mate. The moderate Kaine was not from a swing state, was not particularly charismatic, and did nothing to shore up Clinton's left flank with progressives still seething from the outcome of the bitter primary contest against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Reports suggested that Clinton chose Kaine precisely because of their ideological affinity, a callback to her husband Bill Clinton's choice of Al Gore in 1992. Clinton and Kaine "are cut from the same political cloth," said The New Yorker's John Cassidy about the puzzling selection. Kaine was thought by Clinton's advisors to be "someone with whom they might work closely for four or eight years," Cassidy said. Instead, they only got to work together for a few months before their shock loss to the Trump-Pence ticket. 

Joe Lieberman (2000): For Democrats, it is hard to think about Joe Lieberman outside the context of what followed his losing campaign with then-Vice President Al Gore in 2000. A social moderate, Lieberman, a veteran senator for Connecticut, became so disenchanted with his party during George W. Bush's two terms that he ran successfully as an independent for another term in 2006.  In 2008 Lieberman campaigned for the Republican nominee, John McCain and appeared at the Republican National Convention. But in 2000, Gore chose him as a way of distancing himself from President Clinton's sordid personal history. Lieberman had given a fiery speech on the Senate floor during Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial denouncing his conduct while still voting to acquit. Lieberman was also the first Jewish candidate to serve on a major-party presidential ticket and was very popular in his home state. But Gore's real problem was with the disenchanted progressive wing of his own party, and enough people deserted him for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader to cost Gore the crucial swing state of Florida and thus the election. 

In the end, Mike Pence's decision to suspend his quixotic 2024 presidential bid in Las Vegas was a strangely fitting one; the incongruity of an evangelical Christian making his announcement to the Republican Jewish Coalition at their annual convention in a city that represents the antithesis of Pence's teetotaling moralist persona is, in a way, similar to the incongruity of Pence's broader campaign to represent a party under the thrall of a man whose supporters wanted Pence hanged just two years ago. That Pence would end his candidacy by acknowledging 2024 was simply "not my time" raises an obvious follow-up question: was it ever? 

With anemic polling numbers and moribund fundraising hauls, Pence's campaign had been "DOA for months," according to Politico, which called it "surprising" that former veep had held out for as long as he did "given the hostility he endured from Trump’s most ardent supporters." If anything, Pence was caught in something of a "political no-man's land," The Dispatch reported, citing GOP strategist Brad Todd, who told the outlet that Pence's ultimate failure wasn't one of ideology, but because "he was too Trumpy for Trump's detractors and not Trumpy enough for Trump’s admirers."

Although that sort of political limbo may have been fatal for his presidential aspirations, it does not mean Pence is wholly without options for his future. With the re-ascendency of his former boss looking more and more likely by the day, Pence's next steps as a non-candidate could end up being nearly as consequential as if he'd never dropped out to begin with.

What the commentators said

One thing Pence will most likely not do is follow his old boss' advice and throw his weight behind Trump's juggernaut of a campaign, In spite of Trump's call for Pence to "endorse me" now that he's out of the race  ("You know why?" he told RJC conference attendees. "Because I had a great, successful presidency and he was the vice president"), Pence had predicted his entire run on rejecting Trump's populist bombast, and seems unlikely to return to the MAGA fold anytime soon — especially after Trump conditioned his suggestion with the longtime critique that Pence was  "very disloyal."

If anything, Pence is now less encumbered to speak out against Trump where it matters — in court, MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos predicted. Noting that Pence has "already provided evidence" for Special Counsel Jack Smith's various investigations into the former president, Cevallos put the odds of Pence actively testifying against Trump at "high to almost a certainty," with "absolutely nothing holding him back now." 

Blocking Trump politically, however, may be Pence's most immediate concern. He is "considering his options" for a potential endorsement of one of his many GOP rivals, Time Magazine reported, saying he's "likely to pray on the decision and consider who is most plausible to block Trump from the nomination." To that end, his onetime adversaries have largely reacted to Pence's exit by lauding the former veep, including Nikki Haley, "widely presumed to be the main beneficiary of Pence’s exit," who praised Pence as a "good man of faith," according to The Guardian. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis also hailed Pence as a "principled man of faith" while thanking the Pence family for "their willingness to put themselves forward in this campaign."

What next?

In the immediate future, Pence is likely focusing on the November 14 publishing date of his next book, "Go Home for Dinner," a series of anecdotes on "how faith makes a family and family makes a life" co-authored with his daughter Charlotte. Pence is also expected to continue his political advocacy through his Advancing American Freedom think tank created after he left office as "an alternative to The Heritage Foundation," The Associated Press reported. 

Ultimately, Pence seemed to be campaigning more "for his place in the history books than the Iowa caucuses," Politico said. With potential enforcement coming, and Trump's federal trials looming, his departure from the race is "not likely the last time Pence will make news in the coming months."

Leading hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination including Donald Trump, his former vice-president Mike Pence and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis kicked off their bids to win over voters in Iowa at the state fair last weekend.

The Midwestern state may be “small”, its population “overwhelmingly white” and its turnout for the caucuses “absurdly low”, wrote Andrew Prokop at Vox, but Iowa has become “super important” in deciding who is nominated by both Republicans and Democrats in the race for the White House.

The caucuses are not until January, but the summer Iowa State Fair is a “rite of passage for presidential candidates”, said John McCormick at The Wall Street Journal. It can be a “humbling place” for the “lesser-known candidates”, but the “massive media coverage” surrounding the annual event offers an invaluable “boost for candidate exposure”.

Why does Iowa matter so much?

It’s because Iowa is the first state where “actual voters across any US state get up and go say who they want to be president”, said Vox’s Prokop. The 2024 caucuses will be the first time since 1972, however, that only the GOP will begin its election process in Iowa, with the Democratic Party opting to start its presidential primary in South Carolina, in a bid to “empower minority voters”, said Brynn Holland at History.

After the primary elections were reformed for the 1972 presidential election to ensure “voters would have a direct say” in choosing the nominees, and given Iowa’s long nominating process, the state was given an “early slot on the voting calendar”.

That early slot means the media “hypes up” the results, wrote Prokop, but it is also the first chance for voters in other areas to “make sense of complex, multi-candidate fields”, while donors also weigh up whether a candidate is “still viable” after their performance in Iowa.

A strong result in Iowa can hand a candidate “momentum that can propel their campaigns forward”, wrote The Economist.

How much influence does Iowa really have?

While the Iowa caucuses may provide an early shot in the arm to a candidate’s campaign, they do not necessarily “translate to winning the general election”, said Candice Norwood at PBS.

There is also a difference in “the success of Republican and Democratic winners” in gaining their party’s nomination after winning in Iowa. Democrat winners in Iowa routinely gain the presidential nomination when compared to the Republicans. That is because the Republican votes tend to be “referendums on who is the most socially conservative candidate”, which is not “necessarily a reflection of the broader Republican coalition”, Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, told PBS.

Winning in Iowa can have a big effect on the national picture, however, said Harry Enten at CNN. On average, victorious candidates receive “a seven-point bounce in the national polls”.

What role does the Iowa State Fair play?

The Iowa State Fair is one of the “biggest political events” leading up to the caucuses and “unofficially kicks off the campaign season”, said Dylan Wells at The Washington Post.

While candidates will never give up a chance to augment their standing in the polls, the fair “offers an opportunity to meet directly with the Iowans” for the first time.

Most candidates who attend will make a “brief speech” but often face “hecklers and tough questions shouted from passing attendees”. They’ll also try to find “common ground with working-class people” by taking part in some of the fair’s activities, while also trying to “avoid awkward photos of themselves eating”.

Though the “good politicking” at the fair, which runs from 10-20 August, won’t necessarily decide the next president, it can “refresh a struggling campaign or lift political underdogs into the national spotlight”.

Who succeeded at this year’s fair?

Former president Trump showed he would “not concede even a moment of the spotlight” to his rivals after appearing in Iowa last weekend, said Lisa Lerer in The New York Times. He was given “a much warmer reception” than his main challenger, DeSantis, despite being on “rocky terms with leaders in Iowa”.

DeSantis has “struggled to connect with voters in more unscripted moments” and was booed at the fair by the Trump supporters he “hopes to win over”.

Senator Tim Scott's decision to withdraw from the Republican presidential primaries has thrown open the door to one of Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis to seize the mantle of the "anyone but Donald Trump" candidate.

Describing Scott's withdrawal as "unexpected but not surprising", The Telegraph said the senator's donors are "now open for poaching" and "as important, his small cadre of voters are up for grabs".

It will take "some other political cunning or an unexpected event to overhaul Donald Trump at this stage", said Sky News US correspondent Matha Kelner, "but there is still time for the other candidates to sell themselves, if any Republican voters out there are still listening."

Here are the runners and riders for the Republican nomination.

Donald Trump – 1/5*

The former president's star appeared to be on the wane following last November's less than impressive mid-terms, which some Republican leaders blamed on him personally for alienating more moderate, suburban voters. But Trump is still idolised by his loyal base of supporters and has staged a remarkable comeback over the past year to lead the Republican field by double digits.

Already behaving as the presumptive nominee he has eschewed the party's presidential debates, creating a "novel dynamic" said Al Jazeera: "one where Trump is acting more like an incumbent than a candidate trying to unseat a sitting president".

Even a series of criminal indictments – ranging from the payment of hush money to an adult film star to attempts to overturn the 2020 election – seem unable to dent his popularity among the Republican base, with a recent New York Times poll even putting him ahead of Joe Biden in five of the six key swing states next November.

Ron DeSantis – 8/1

On paper, DeSantis had all the makings of a Republican presidential nominee in 2024. A culture warrior and staunch critic of "wokeism", he has advocated for harsher immigration measures and against LGBT rights. He has a "multilayered appeal", said The Hill, supported by his pushback against Covid mask and vaccine mandates and his advocacy of Florida's "Don’t Say Gay" bill. And at 45, he promises generational change, in sharp contrast to the 77-year-old Trump or 80-year-old Joe Biden.

But having held off formally announcing his run until late spring, his campaign has never really got going and the former frontrunner is now trying to stay in the race for second place.

He is, however, "showing no signs of going away as he narrows his focus on Iowa's lead-off caucuses" said Yahoo News. He has secured the backing of Iowa governor Kim Reynolds and drawn growing support among the state's influential group of religious conservatives.

Nikki Haley – 13/2

The former governor of South Carolina, who later served as US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, has initially been described by The New York Times as "playing a shrewd and careful game" in the eyes of Republicans as she has tried to distance herself from Trump while continuing "to embrace him at the same time".

It was recently reported her campaign will reserve $10m in television, radio and digital advertising across both states beginning in the first week of December, a "massive investment designed to give the former UN ambassador an advantage" over DeSantis as she fights to emerge as the "clear alternative" to Trump to represent the Republicans against President Joe Biden next November, said The Guardian.

The New York Times said her campaign is betting on "an eventual Haley-Trump showdown" in South Carolina, which is her home state and third on the nominating calendar.

Vivek Ramaswamy – 28/1

A long-time admirer of Trump, the libertarian Ramaswamy announced he was running for president to eliminate the "national identity crisis" he claims was caused by "new secular religions like Covid-ism, climate-ism, and gender ideology", said AP News.

He enjoyed a stand-out first debate but has since slipped in the polls and could face pressure to drop out before the first primaries next year should Haley or DeSantis cement their position as the main challenge to Trump. However, the "impossible-to-overlook, mutual disdain" between him and Haley means he could stay in as a spoiler if she emerges victorious, said Politico.

*Odds from Paddy Power

Members of the Jan. 6 committee said recently they might subpoena former Vice President Mike Pence to testify about the pressure he faced from then-President Donald Trump to overturn President Biden's victory in the 2020 election. Witnesses have testified to the panel that Trump called Pence on the morning of Jan. 6 to urge him one last time to stop the certification of Trump's loss to Biden when Congress met to finalize the Electoral College results. "It started off [in a] calmer tone ... and then it became heated," former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told the committee, according to Axios. Ivanka Trump's then-chief of staff, Julie Radford, said Trump called Pence the "p-word" for resisting.

The committee has received the accounts of several Trump and Pence aides about the call. Now it wants to hear directly from Pence about what Trump asked him to do, and why he refused to reject Biden electors to tip the election to Trump. Trump allies vilify Pence for turning down his boss in his time of need. Critics of Trump's baseless claim that he lost to Biden due to election fraud say Pence never pushed back hard enough against the Big Lie. Still others say he's a hero for braving the backlash from MAGA world and doing the right thing to ensure the peaceful transfer of power to the duly elected president. How will history remember Pence's role in the Jan. 6 saga?

Pence saved the day

Mike Pence put the nation's interests before his own on Jan. 6, says Isaac Schorr at National Review. He has his eye on the White House, so "his political interests may have been better served by lending more credence to 'stop the steal,'" to please the MAGA base. But Pence drew the line where it had to be drawn, and bravely resisted "Trump's call to try to reject the legitimate Electoral College results." His former chief of staff, Marc Short, and former chief counsel, Greg Jacob, told the Jan. 6 committee that Pence never wavered in carrying out his duties on Jan. 6, not even as Trump "egged on a mob chanting 'hang Mike Pence' by tweeting 'Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.'" Pence, it turns out, did "have the courage to do what should have been done," and he saved the day.

Just doing your job can be heroic nowadays

A lot of liberals who used to mock Pence as spineless saw him in a new light on Jan. 6, says Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post. Not only did he stand his ground when Trump called him a "coward and worse," but he stayed at the Capitol that day — as rioters shouted "Hang Mike Pence!" — to do his job. Granted, he wavered before Jan. 6, and looked into whether there was a legal way to delay certification of the vote. Of course, the vice president has no right to stand in the way when Congress certifies the results of a presidential election, and Pence knew that. What he did took guts, but, remember: "Only in a country where duty has lost its currency and honesty is rare does doing the right thing rise to the level of heroic."

Pence should have stood up to Trump earlier

"I'm having a hard time joining the 'Mike Pence the Hero' bandwagon," says Bret Stephens at The New York Times. Why didn't he speak up in November when "Trump started lying" about the fact that Biden beat him? Or when Team Trump hired dodgy lawyers to "peddle insane conspiracy theories about voting machines and preposterous interpretations of the Electoral Count Act?" Pence is no hero. He's "a worm who, for a few hours on Jan. 6, turned into a glowworm."

The man is still a 'mealymouthed Trump stooge'

If Pence felt heroic on Jan. 6, he got over it, says Inae Oh at Mother Jones. This week, he told Fox News Digital Monday that the Jan. 6 committee's public hearings were part of a Democratic political plot to, and I quote, "use that tragic day to distract attention from their failed agenda or to demean the intentions of 74 million Americans who rallied behind our cause." The man is flirting with his former boss' "election lies," there. He also claimed to be concerned about "voting irregularities" in the 2020 election, and insisted that he and Trump had talked out their differences. In another Fox News interview, he said Biden lies more than any president in his lifetime, proving unequivocally that he's still a "mealymouthed Trump stooge."

Former Vice President Mike Pence's famous family rabbit, Marlon Bundo, has died, reports The Washington Post.

The former BOTUS (Bunny of the United States) was adopted by Charlotte Pence Bond, Pence's daughter, and joined the family in Washington when Pence was elected. In a tribute to Bundo on Instagram, Pence Bond wrote that the rabbit "came into our lives at just the moment we needed you most."

As the Post writes, the bunny became an "unlikely gay rights figure" after Pence Bond authored several children's books starring the pet, and Last Week Tonight host John Oliver released a parody book meant to skewer Pence's opposition to gay rights. In Oliver's version, Bundo is a "boy bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny."

Former second lady Karen Pence, who illustrated the non-parody versions of the Bundo-inspired books, wrote a tribute to the black-and-white bunny on Twitter, pledging "we will never forget him."

Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper are offering slightly different views on President Biden's exit from Afghanistan.

In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, Pence argued that Biden "broke" the Trump administration's deal with the Taliban by remaining in Afghanistan four months past the deadline, and didn't have a sound evacuation strategy. "The Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is a foreign policy humiliation unlike anything our country has endured since the Iran hostage crisis," he writes. "It has embarrassed America on the world stage, caused allies to doubt our dependability, and emboldened enemies to test our resolve." The Trump administration, on the other hand, had previously struck a deal that "brought to Afghanistan a stability unseen in decades," Pence continued.

Esper, who was fired by Trump after the November election, agreed that Biden "owns" what happened in Kabul this past week, but he's not sure Trump really achieved what Pence describes. On Tuesday, he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the former president's desire to send American troops home from Afghanistan before the deal's conditions were met "undermined" the agreement. Last week, Esper tweeted what's become a fairly common refrain in recent days: Both administrations shoulder some responsibility for the fallout, even though he thinks their long-term objective was the right one. Read Pence's full op-ed at The Wall Street Journal.

"Last night the House voted 252-175 to form a commission that would investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riots," Jimmy Fallon said on Thursday's Tonight Show. "Not only did 175 Republicans vote against the commission, they also want to make Jan. 6 'Bring Your Insane Rioter to Work Day.'" The commission bill "now heads to the Senate, where it needs support of 10 Republicans," he said. "Come on, there's a better chance of 10 dentists supporting Mountain Dew Cake Smash."

"Get this, Mike Pence's brother Greg Pence voted no," Fallon laughed. "People said, 'Don't you care that they tried to kill your brother?' And he was like 'No's before bros!' That will make for a fun family barbecue this summer: 'Mother, ask Judas how he wants his meat patty.'"

The Late Show suggested this year's Pence Thanksgiving will be awkward, to the tune of Sister Sledge's "We Are Family."

Apparently, "Republicans don't want to find out why they were almost murdered because it could hurt them politically," believing "a Jan. 6 probe could undercut their midterm message," Stephen Colbert sighed at The Late Show. Rep. Tim Ryan's (D-Ohio) explained his bafflement at this strategy on the House floor. "Wow, what an impassioned speech," Colbert marveled. "That guy should run for president." (The joke is, he just did.)

"The new new thing in Washington now that's dividing Congress is the mask mandate in the House of Representatives — Democrats want it, so Republicans, naturally, don't," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "It look a while, but we finally found the one thing House Republicans aren't willing to cover up: their faces. And the main reason these masks are still needed, the only reason they need them on the floor of the House, is because less than half of House Republicans are vaccinated." He explained how certain unvaccinated people are total "freeloaders."

Jeff Bezos is auctioning off a seat on his Blue Origin space tourism flight, and the current high bid is $2.8 million, Kimmel said. "Who has $2.8 million and might need to get off the planet fast?" Maybe the rich guy in deepening legal peril. Donald Trump will "finally get to meet all the illegal aliens he's been screaming about," he joked. The former president's former lawyer suggested he'll feed his kids to the wolves to save his own skin, Kimmel said. "The saddest part is going to be when Trump forgets to pin a crime on Tiffany."

Unsurprisingly, former President Donald Trump won the Conservative Political Action Conference's 2024 presidential straw poll Sunday, and he did so handily, garnering 55 percent of the vote. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was the only other potential candidate to reach double digits at 21 percent.

It's unclear if Trump will run, but many Republicans, including some of Trump's fiercest critics, think he is the overwhelming favorite for the nomination right now if he does enter the ring. So, CPAC conducted a second poll without Trump. DeSantis led the way in that one at 43 percent, followed by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) at 11 percent. Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence, who declined an invitation to the conference in Orlando, didn't gain much traction.

The polls, of course, come with many caveats attached. The election is a long way away, straw polls aren't the most reliable predictive method, and the CPAC conference is not necessarily representative of the larger Republican Party, which many analysts consider to be at a Trump-inspired crossroads right now. It's also worth noting that DeSantis' strong showing may be partly tied to the conference taking place on his home turf. Read more at The New York Times.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has lived in public housing since 2013, first the Indiana governor's mansion and then the vice presidential residence at the Naval Observatory. In fact, he and his wife, former second lady Karen Pence, are currently "homeless," not having owned a house in years, and "couch-surfing" back home in Indiana, Business Insider reports.

The Pences are reportedly staying either at a cabin used by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R), staying with family, or moving frequently to evade murderous Trump supporters. But Stephen Colbert's Late Show imagined Pence actually couch-surfing on Wednesday night, and in its re-enactment, things go a little awry. Peter Weber

Vice President Mike Pence has arrived at President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration— while President Trump, at almost the same time, landed in Florida.

Pence was introduced at Biden's inauguration on Wednesday alongside second lady Karen Pence, and they received "hearty, bipartisan applause," CNN's Jeremy Diamond writes. The vice president's arrival was more notable than usual considering Trump refused to attend the ceremony, leaving Washington, D.C., beforehand despite the tradition of presidents being in attendance for their successor's swearing-in.

Trump had departed on Air Force One for Florida earlier after delivering farewell remarks, and the plane landed within minutes of Pence being introduced.

Among those who were previously introduced at the inauguration include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and according to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Clinton went "out of her way to greet" Pence, and "they exchanged a few words." Despite his refusal to attend the inauguration, Trump left a note in the White House for Biden, as is tradition, and The New York Times' Maggie Haberman reports Pence also left a note for his successor, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Brendan Morrow

Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt hopes President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence can still be friends after Trump's backers forced their way into the Capitol and tried to hunt the vice president down.

Congress began certifying President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College win Wednesday when an armed, pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol building and disrupted the process for hours. Pence's pledge to certify the results — he didn't have the Constitutional authority to challenge them — was seemingly a trigger for the siege, which came minutes after Trump told the gathered crowd he hoped Pence would "stand up for the good of our country" and continued to criticize him for not doing so.

But on Fox & Friends Thursday morning, Earhardt somehow saw the possibility of reconciliation between the two leaders. After co-host Steve Doocy noted there was no way for Pence to "wave that magic wand" and spin the election for Trump, Earhardt said she "hope[s] that doesn't taint their relationship, because they've been such supporters of one another." An incredulous Doocy wondered how that could even be possible, but Earhardt continued, saying "I hope the president will be able to forgive him."

"I hope that they can move forward and move past this and just agree there were differences," Earhardt finished.

Those differences include a fundamental understanding of how the Constitution and American elections work, but sure.

Shortly after President Trump urged his supporters at Wednesday's "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, D.C., to march on the Capitol, they set off down Pennsylvania Avenue, using alternative social media sites like Gab and Parler to discuss "directions on which streets to take to avoid the police and which tools to bring to help pry open doors," as well as how to carry guns into the halls of Congress, The New York Times reports. QAnon, the Proud Boys, and other pro-Trump groups have used such sites for months to openly call for violence against members of Congress and seizing the Capitol building.

Once the mob breached the Capitol building, one of the dozens of Trump supporters roaming the Capitol halls asked, "Where are they?" The Associated Press reports. At that point, the lawmakers were crouching on the floor of the House chamber or under tables, hiding out in secure locations, or sheltering in their offices, praying and telling their loved ones they were alive. At about 2:00 p.m., Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) were evacuated from the Senate, and police cleared the chamber about half an hour later.

"At 2:24 p.m., after Mr. Trump tweeted that Mr. Pence 'didn't have the courage to do what should have been done,' dozens of messages on Gab called for those inside the Capitol building to hunt down the vice president," the Times reports. "In videos uploaded to the channel, protesters could be heard chanting 'Where is Pence?'"

Pence, it turns out, was busy. "Throughout the day, Pence appeared to take on much of the coordination that would traditionally be led by the president in a moment of crisis," Politico reports. "In addition to speaking with defense officials about the deployment of National Guard troops, Pence fielded phone calls from Trump allies who appeared eager to erase the president from the picture." Wednesday marked "the beginning of the end" of Pence's loyalty to Trump, one Pence ally told Politico, and it "may very well be the end of his political career, too."

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted earlier Wednesday that President Trump had authorized the deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., after his supporters breached the Capitol. There are reports, however, that it was not Trump, but Vice President Mike Pence who approved the move.

Per The New York Times, Pentagon and Trump administration officials said the green light came from the vice president, while Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said he and Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), about what was happening at the Capitol. It does not appear either Miller or Milley spoke with the president.

Pence making the decision certainly seems plausible, considering Trump has reportedly angered his aides with his lax attitude toward his supporters' actions. Read more at The New York Times.

President Trump has turned against everyone he thinks isn't fighting to keep him in office after he lost the Nov. 3 election, according to several reports and Trump tweets. And among those the president considers insufficiently loyal is Vice President Mike Pence, Axios reports. "A source who spoke to Trump said the president was complaining about Pence and brought up a Lincoln Project ad that claims that Pence is 'backing away' from Trump. This ad has clearly got inside Trump's head, the source said," per Axios.

Some of the Lincoln Project's ads are explicitly aimed at getting inside Trump's head, and one spot about former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale reportedly helped lead to Parscale's ouster. Pence appears to be taking Trump's feelings seriously. Trump can't fire Pence, but "the vice president does not want to leave on bad terms with the president, I can assure you that," an administration official with knowledge of Pence's thinking told The Washington Post.

When Pence addressed the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, he fed them "the mirage that the election fight was not yet over," the Post reports. "As our election contest continues, I'll make you a promise: We're going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted," Pence said. "We're going to win Georgia, we're going to save America, and we'll never stop fighting to make America great again." Trump's loss in Georgia has already been affirmed several times, including after both a hand recount and a machine recount.

The big challenge for Pence will be presiding over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that will ratify President-elect Biden's electoral victory. "Pence's role on Jan. 6 has begun to loom large in Trump's mind," Axios reports. "Trump would view Pence performing his constitutional duty — and validating the election result — as the ultimate betrayal." Pence and his advisers "have begun thinking about how to handle Jan. 6 and escape Trump's ire, but no final decisions have been made," the Post adds.

Vice President Mike Pence wasn't at President Trump's White House press conference on Thursday evening, but he approved of his message.

Trump made multiple baseless claims about the election, including that Democrats are trying to "steal" it. He said that "legal votes" are in his favor and Democrats are relying on "illegal votes." Pence later echoed Trump's comments on Twitter, saying, "I stand with President @realDonaldTrump. We must count every LEGAL vote."

Based on Trump's remarks, it appears as though the president considers mail-in ballots to be "illegal votes," even though they are perfectly legal. Each state has different rules for mail-in ballots — in California, for example, as long as a ballot is postmarked by Nov. 3 and arrives up to 17 days after the election, it will be counted. In Iowa, ballots have to be postmarked no later than Nov. 2 and arrive at county auditor's offices by noon on Nov. 10.

Ahead of the election, Trump railed against mail-in ballots, trying to claim they are tied to voter fraud, and told his supporters to vote for him in person. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, more people requested absentee ballots, and in some cases, states sent ballots to all registered voters. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden backed expanded mail-in voting, and those ballots have been benefiting him in battleground states like Pennsylvania.

This week kicked off with more coronavirus chaos that left Downing Street under fire after a glitch in Britain’s tracking system saw the daily number of new cases appear to double overnight.

Boris Johnson and his ministers blamed “computer issues” for delays in reporting more than 15,000 cases recorded over the previous week, which was caused by data on people who tested positive exceeding the maximum size of files used in the system.

The Conservatives had more luck getting to grips with technology at their first virtual party conference, which wrapped up on Tuesday following a round of remote speeches from cabinet ministers, as well as a promise from Johnson to create a “post-war new Jerusalem” after the pandemic.

Over on the opposition benches, Keir Starmer’s battle with the Labour left continued, as the Unite union, the party’s biggest donor, announced it was cutting its funding by 10% amid frustrations with a perceived shift in the party’s direction.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in both UK and global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week:

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

In the US, Donald Trump returned to the White House after three days in hospital for treatment for Covid-19, despite health experts warning that he was still potentially infectious. The second presidential debate is now in doubt, after Trump said he would not take part in a virtual head-to-head.

If his scheduled stand-off with Joe Biden is cancelled, voters will be left with extra time to mull over the vice-presidential debate, which saw Democratic nominee Kamala Harris lock horns with Mike Pence on issues including the administration’s coronavirus response, racism, health care and climate change.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that face masks may not protect against Covid-19 in wet or damp weather - a verdict that is unlikely to bother the mask-eschewing US president.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Frank Bruni in The New York Times

on a historic vice-presidential debate

Mike Pence’s debate performance bugged me out

“It was a memorable debate even apart from the insect. (Now there’s a sentence I never imagined writing.) It was historic: Harris is the first woman of color on the presidential ticket of one of America’s two major parties. Her status as a trailblazer was openly acknowledged, and it informed — and gave extra force to — her disapproval of Pence when he wouldn’t acknowledge implicit racial bias in policing. She and Pence were separated not only by 12 feet but by plexiglass shields, which called to mind sneeze guards, conjured thoughts of salad bars and prompted me to wonder which ingredient each of the candidates represented. (I’m going with cottage cheese for Pence.) The Pence camp had resisted these droplet dams — which, truth be told, many public health experts said were of questionable use — but given how freely the coronavirus had been permitted to rampage through the White House, the Harris camp would have been justified in demanding that Pence debate from the inside of a giant Ziploc bag.”

2. Donald Earl Collins in Al Jazeera

on racism in America

Why race relations are an abusive fantasy

“The video that shows Kyle Rittenhouse killing two protesters and wounding another in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25 has made him into the very embodiment of American race relations. He is yet another white male vigilante killing in the name of so-called law and order, as well as a self-described Blue Lives Matter supporter. He took it upon himself to leave his home in Antioch, Illinois, cross state lines, seek out a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators protesting on behalf of Jacob Blake, and discharge his AR-15 into the crowd. Rittenhouse personifies the power and the toxic lethality of whiteness, its abusive and narcissistic uncaring for the suffering and death that it causes.”

3. Mark Smith in The Herald

on the great outdoors

The natural solution to virus anxiety

“Let me tell you about the column I didn’t write. I didn’t write a column about the latest virus restrictions. I didn’t write about the people I know who work in pubs and cafes and restaurants who are coming to the end of their tether, and I didn’t write about the people on Twitter who are angry about Trump, and Sturgeon, and Johnson, and everything else. That’s what I didn’t do. Instead, I went outside. I went to Lanarkshire, to an old Roman encampment a couple of miles outside the town, and I met a bunch of people there, gardeners and volunteers, and we weaved in and out of the trees until we reached a clearing and we planted some saplings and shrubs. Mint and raspberry bushes by the path. Willow further in. And wild roses. And oak. So that’s what I’m going to write about instead: the effects I noticed – on the forest, and on us.”

4. Jenni Russell in The Times

on Boris Johnson’s chores

Why should a PM have to make his own lunch?

“There is a remarkable contrast in our prime ministers’ lives between the support system for official business and what happens when the official day stops. From the minute they leave the No 11 flat their days are organised with smooth precision, from security briefings to G7 summits to cabinet. Nobody expects a prime minister to look up their own train timetables, check colleagues’ diaries or order their own cars. Their time and energy are precious resources. That concern evaporates in their private time. The only domestic help in Downing Street is a cleaner. There’s no housekeeper, no chef; they must do it all themselves. A prime minister making momentous evening phone calls on whether to bomb Syria or leave the EU without a deal is simultaneously still responsible for doing his share of the laundry and making family supper.”

5. Lijia Zhang in the South China Morning Post

on historical revisionism

China needs open debate on the Korean war to lay ghosts to rest

“Seventy years ago this month, the People’s Volunteer Army crossed the Yalu River, marking China’s entry into the Korean war, known in China as the ‘War to Resist America and Aid Korea’. In September, when the remains of 117 Chinese soldiers were returned to China from South Korea, the editor-in-chief of the nationalist Global Times, Hu Xijin, took a swipe at America in a tweet: ‘70 yrs ago, the newly founded PRC showed no fear to the US power. Never underestimate Chinese people’s determination to safeguard national security.’Instead of trying to use the occasion to score points against America, amid intensifying tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, China should take the opportunity to re-examine the war, a watershed event that shaped the course of East Asian history. At school, we were taught that the conflict was China’s great victory against American aggression. Was it?”

Vice-presidential debates usually slip by fairly unnoticed, with viewership figures falling steadily in the years since 2008’s clash between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

But with Donald Trump’s coronavirus battle casting doubt over whether the second presidential debate will go ahead, all eyes were last night on the head-to-head clash between Republican Vice-President Mike Pence and his Democratic rival California Senator Kamala Harris.

After a bruising debate between Trump and Biden last week, this standoff was touted as the only “sensible conversation we get to watch the two parties have in this year’s presidential contest”, The Ringer says.

So how did the two fare? And, with just 26 days to go until election day, who came out on top?

What was discussed?

Despite predictions that the debate would be a courteous affair, the evening saw some testy exchanges.

In a series of what the BBC calls “heated clashes”, Harris accused Trump and Pence of “the greatest failure of any presidential administration” in history, adding that the current administration deliberately mislead Americans over the threat of the virus.

“They knew, and they covered it up,” she said, referring to reports by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward that Trump deliberately downplayed the severity of the pandemic. “Frankly, this administration has forfeited their right to re-election based on this,” she added.

Pence, in response, accused the Democratic ticket of “plagiarism” over their strategy for tackling the pandemic, adding that the Democrats were “undermin[ing] public confidence in a vaccine if the vaccine emerges during the Trump administration”.

On the economy, the vice-president pledged that 2021 would be “the biggest economic year in the history of this country”, claiming that Biden plans to “raise your taxes and bury the economy”. Harris stepped in to clarify that Biden will not increase taxes on those earning less than $400,000 (£309,600) a year.

On climate change, Pence acknowledged that “the climate is changing”, but said the Democrats would “crush American energy” and “abolish fossil fuels”. Harris called climate change an “existential threat” to the planet.

When discussing racial inequality, Pence expressed dismay at the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minnesota in May, but added that there was “no excuse for the rioting and looting that followed”.

He added that the suggestion the US is systemically racist and that law enforcement has an implicit bias against minorities is a “great insult”.

Harris responded: “Last week the president of the United States took the debate stage in front of 70 million Americans and refused to condemn white supremacists.”

Who won?

Pundits are torn over who claimed the win in Utah, with many sitting on the fence and calling it a dead heat.

BBC America reporter Anthony Zurcher said there was “no standout winner” but added that the “Democrats will be happy” with Harris’ performance.

“Both candidates had strong moments, and a few stumbles, over the course of the 90-minute affair,” he said. “But as far as lasting memories go, they were few and far between,” Zurcher writes.

“An unmemorable result, in and of itself, is good news for the Democrats and Joe Biden, who polls suggest are leading in the race,” he added.

Harris “clearly won the debate in terms of providing policy and detail and actually answering the questions”, according to The Independent’s Holly Baxter. The Times agrees, saying that “if Democrats were looking for evidence that Harris might one day be able to campaign at the top of a presidential ticket, she gave it to them”.

“Pence entered with a tougher task than Ms Harris and it showed,” the paper adds. However, he succeeded in offering “Trumpism with a more conventional political style”.

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter tweeted that Pence had “wiped the floor” with Harris. And unsuprisingly, Trump agreed, tweeting that Pence “won big”.

Joe Biden offered a more measured response, writing on Twitter that Harris “made us all proud tonight” and sharing a photo of himself holding a fly swatter, a reference to an insect that landed on Pence’s head during the event.

Social media has named a fly as the winner of last night’s US vice-presidential debate. The winged insect settled for around two minutes in Mike Pence’s hair, as the vice president was battling with Democrat Kamala Harris. “Pence is so full of sh!t [sic], a fly literally landed on his head,” wrote one tweeter.

Duck wins Instagram world record

A duck called Ben Afquack has entered the Guinness World Records book for the most followers on Instagram for a duck. Ben, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his owner Derek Johnson, had a total of 79,002 followers at the last count. Derek celebrated the record-breaking feat by eating pizza. Meanwhile, Ben had some mealworms.

Silence of the Lambs house up for sale

The house made famous as the home of serial killer Buffalo Bill in the movie Silence of the Lambs is on sale for just under $300,000 (£231,910). The Pennsylvania home, originally built in 1910, has already had some interest, the current owners said. Encouraging viewers to take a look around, they added: “It’s way nicer in person.”

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Vice President Mike Pence didn't know it at the time, but when he delivered his speech at CPAC earlier this year, he was actually taking part in a secret sequel to Borat.

Amazon Prime Video on Thursday dropped the trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming Borat sequel, which sees Borat travel to America in an attempt to gift his daughter to "someone close to the throne" in the Trump administration. Because Borat is famous from the first film, he wears various disguises so he won't be recognized. The trailer concludes with footage of Borat at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference disguised as President Trump and interrupting Pence's speech while carrying his daughter over his shoulder, yelling to the vice president, "I brought a girl for you!"

As was quickly pointed out on Twitter after the trailer debuted, Pence's speech at CPAC was indeed interrupted by a person dressed as Trump back in February; ABC News reported at the time that "the convention center asked for help" from police "to escort the individual from the premises" and that police were "not pursuing charges against the man."

This second Borat movie was filmed in secret, and reports didn't emerge that it was on the way until September. Baron Cohen was, however, filmed back in June at a far-right rally getting attendees to sing along to a shocking song about wanting to inject people like Dr. Anthony Fauci with the coronavirus, and Rudy Giuliani in July said he called the police after Baron Cohen tried to prank him.

Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm is set to be released by Amazon on Oct. 23, less than two weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Watch the trailer below. Brendan Morrow

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Jenni Russell in The Times

on haphazard checks and individual conscience

Our quarantine rules are phoney nonsense

“The logic of imposing quarantine is that the threat of spreading the virus on return is significant, justifying drastic restrictions on freedom, havoc for the struggling travel industry and huge costs for those who must isolate but cannot work from home. Quarantine is not lockdown by another name. It is far fiercer. Those in it may not leave home, even to shop, exercise or walk a dog. They must ask others to buy food or medicine if deliveries can’t be arranged. Nobody may visit except to give care. Only a handful of reasons justify stepping beyond the front door: medical emergencies, a family funeral, imminent danger. People must isolate for 14 days but they have no right to be paid. You would assume that a government decreeing that these serious restrictions were vital would be monitoring them with equal seriousness. You would be mistaken. The system for overseeing and enforcing quarantine is a shabby, incoherent mess, because nobody has designed it to be anything else.”

2. Tom Harris in The Daily Telegraph

on why the UK has little to gain from Scotland

There are some things the English definitely shouldn’t want to copy from Scotland

“Historically, Scots were cynical and critical of their political leaders. A mountain range of comedy and literature was founded on ordinary people’s healthy mistrust of, and disrespect for, all kinds of authority. Deference was a dirty word. No longer. Devolution has succeeded in at least this respect: it has inculcated a mentality that was, in the days of direct rule from London, alien to Scots. While references to ‘Boris’ are looked upon with suspicion about the user’s political views, it is de rigueur to refer to the first minister as ‘Nicola’... A culture in which voters remain determined to vote for the party of government irrespective of that government’s actions or policies is the antithesis of democratic accountability. It gives ministers carte blanche to pursue any policy they wish while knowing that however ill-judged it is, it will have no impact on their electoral prospects.”

3. Daniel Trilling in The Guardian

on a continent acting in its self-interest

Greece has a deadly new migration policy – and all of Europe is to blame

“A vital part of international refugee law is the principle of non-refoulement: the idea that states should not push people seeking asylum back to unsafe countries. In a country like the UK, which does not sit next to a war zone, advocates of ‘tougher’ policies to deter asylum seekers will claim that the principle does not apply, since people who reach Britain’s shores will have passed through several peaceful countries before they get there. But if every country looks only to its own interests, and behaves as if asylum seekers are someone else’s problem, then you very quickly end up with a system that traps people in situations where their lives are at risk. That is the system bequeathed by Europe’s panicked response to the 2015 refugee crisis, and in recent months, partly under cover of the emergency conditions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, it has got worse.”

4. Charles M. Blow in The New York Times

on the role of black speakers in Trump’s Republican Party

R.N.C. Rewrites Trump’s Racism - and America’s

“So far the Republican National Convention isn’t so much presenting a record of America and an administration as it is inventing one. The speakers at the event haven’t admitted to the pathological pursuit of a white nationalist, white power agenda that has become a signature of Donald Trump’s presidency. So what we’ve heard bears little relation to the fullness of truth and is not the correct distillation of a record. Instead, we have been feted to a parade of Black and brown faces that have sought to soften or even erase Trump’s overt history of racism to falsify an American story into one in which liberals are worse racial offenders than conservatives. In this inside-out world, Trump has been an exemplar on racial inclusion and his defeat would usher in an era of racial division.”

5. Holly Baxter in The Independent

on the previously quiet vice president

It turns out Mike Pence is even more radical than we all feared

“It turns out that when Pence is allowed to open his mouth by the permatanned bully beside him, he is just as radical and unhinged as we always suspected. In fact, as he bellowed in an uncharacteristically uncontrolled moment that ‘we will have law and order on the streets of this country!’ I began to realize he’s probably even worse than we thought. Because the lies that stacked up were blatant, brazen and unabashed. ‘Democrats support abortion up to the point of birth’; ‘Joe Biden is for free lawyers and healthcare for illegal immigrants’; ‘Biden has been a cheerleader for communist China’; Donald Trump was singlehandedly responsible for the defeat of Isis, which happened without ‘one American casualty’; Obama caused a recession; the US is known the world over for its fantastic response to coronavirus. It was like a compilation of Trump’s own worst takes, and for the first time I genuinely wondered whether poisonous little Mike Pence might be the main inspiration for a lot of what we’re subjected to from the President in the White House and on Twitter.”

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Matthew Walther on The Week US

on Pete Buttigieg pulling out of the Democratic race

The undoing of Mayor Pete

“Mayor Pete’s undoing was his utterly predictable failure to connect with white working-class, Hispanic, and, especially, black voters. There are a number of reasons for this — his thin resume, his vague platform, his record with South Bend’s African-American population — but the most obvious one has been the subject of comparatively little public discussion: namely, the fact that many millions of poor and minority voters still disapprove of same-sex marriage. When footage emerged last month of an Iowa caucus participant asking to retract her vote upon learning that Buttigieg is married to a person of the same sex, the woman was discussed as if she were a curiosity as opposed to a fairly typical representative of the Democratic electorate outside of the party establishment and activist circles.”

2. Maureen Dowd in The New York Times

on how to mishandle a health crisis

Trump makes us ill

“Trump is already doing his orange clown pufferfish routine, acting as though he knows more about viruses than anyone, just as he has bragged that he knows more about the military, taxes, trade, infrastructure, ISIS, renewables, visas, banking, debt and ‘the horror of nuclear’... Trump’s history in business — he makes people feel good for a while and then it ends badly — could presage a stock market crash before he exits. And it’s conceivable that a crash — along with hospitals being overwhelmed by the uninsured — could lead to the election of a real populist promising Medicare for All. And that would be a very Trumpian arc indeed.”

3. The editorial board in The Telegraph

on the rise of a new evil

Africa’s Sahel must not replace Afghanistan as a haven for international terrorists

“The absolute condition on the Taliban is that they do not allow Afghanistan to become once again the headquarters of Islamist terrorists intent upon striking against the West. If that were to happen, said President Trump, ‘we’ll go back with a force like no one’s ever seen’. But for Washington, this marks the point where the American heavy lifting ends and other countries are expected to step into the breach. As we report today, this is precisely what is going on in sub-Saharan Africa, where the Islamist fanatics kicked out of Afghanistan and the Middle East have been regrouping.”

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4. Marwan Bishara on Al Jazeera

on redefining modern Judaism in America

US and Israel vote: Two ‘racist’ incumbents and two proud Jews

“Even if Sanders falls behind in the primaries, he has already let the genie out of the bottle. Young Americans, including American Jewish youth from all walks of life, are determined to take a fresh and daring stance on religious fanaticism, racism and inequality in both the United States and Israel. No Democratic nominee will be able to win without them, as Hillary Clinton learned the hard way in 2016. Today, they stand evermore united against Trump’s white supremacist and fanatical evangelical supporters who love Israel, because of a biblical prophecy, but hate Jews. This is a hugely important milestone in the fight against both racism and anti-Semitism.”

5. Dorothy Byrne in The Guardian

on a forgotten demographic

Older women are needlessly going blind. Why isn’t it a national scandal?

“If hundreds of children were losing their sight for no good medical reason, it would be on the front page of every paper. Somehow, old women losing their sight doesn’t seem to be a scandal. Hey, we’re getting on; we should expect horrible things to happen to us medically. It’s not like most of us are economically active, so who cares? Of course, the extra scandal about all of this is that elderly people who lose sight become a burden on health and care services. A study showed that saving the sight of people with GCA actually saves the health service money.”

Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent, and Jimmy Kimmel said he's giving up most human touch. "Today is Ash Wednesday, so, you know, if you see someone with ashes on their forehead today it means either they went to church or, if you're here in Hollywood, put a joint out on their face," he joked on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Pope Francis "is encouraging us to stop insulting each other online," but "I'm giving up the handshake for Lent," he said, noting that experts say countries like Japan have a better shot at containing the virus because they bow instead.

"The president is doing everything he can to calm this nation's nerves," tweeting out an attack on the media while misspelling coronavirus, Kimmel said. "He's right — why is the liberal media only focusing on the negative side of the coronavirus? It's so biased. This is all part of his 'If you can't spell it, you can't catch it' campaign." Trump actually held a press conference, and it was "a rambling presentation" in which "he downplayed the virus, he said the flu kills a lot more people than the coronavirus, so I guess we shouldn't worry. I don't know, alligators have killed more people, too, but it doesn't mean we should go jump in the swamp."

Trump also said he had picked Vice President Mike Pence to lead the U.S. response to the coronavirus. "Didn't it seem like Pence didn't know that was going to happen?" Kimmel asked, laughing. Seriously, "why is Mike Pence in charge? What is his plan to stop the virus? Abstinence? I think Trump might be trying to kill him, I really do." Watch below. Peter Weber

A tell-all book has says US President Donald Trump flounders from crisis to crisis like “a 12-year-old in an air traffic control tower”.

The book, written by an anonymous author identified only as “a senior official in the Trump administration”, also describes the president as an “elderly uncle running pantsless” who often left senior White House staff “waking up in the morning ‘in a full-blown panic’”.

According to extracts of A Warning published in the Washington Post, officials considered resigning en masse last year in a “midnight self-massacre” to sound a public alarm about Trump’s conduct.

The Washington Post says the book paints “a chilling portrait of the president as cruel, inept and a danger to the nation he was elected to lead”.

However, the White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham derided the book as a “work of fiction”. Grisham added: “The coward who wrote this book didn’t put their name on it because it is nothing but lies.”

The Justice Department has warned the publisher and the author’s agents, that the anonymous official may be violating a nondisclosure agreement.

The book’s author says Trump moves from one crisis to the next, “like a twelve-year-old in an air traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flights frantically diverting away from the airport”.

Turning to Trump’s early morning Twitter rants, the author writes: “It’s like showing up at the nursing home at daybreak to find your elderly uncle running pantsless across the courtyard and cursing loudly about the cafeteria food, as worried attendants tried to catch him.

“You’re stunned, amused, and embarrassed all at the same time. Only your uncle probably wouldn’t do it every single day, his words aren’t broadcast to the public, and he doesn’t have to lead the US government once he puts his pants on.”

It also claims that that if a majority of the Cabinet agreed to remove Trump from office under the 25th Amendment, Vice President Mike Pence would support them.

However, Pence, who describes the book as “appalling”, told reporters: “I never heard anything in my time as vice president about the 25th Amendment. And why would I?”

Describing Trump as misogynistic, the author says: “I’ve sat and listened in uncomfortable silence as he talks about a woman’s appearance or performance.”

He also accuses Trump of putting on a Hispanic accent while complaining about migrants crossing the US-Mexico border.

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President Trump apparently has more to share when it comes to exchanges with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, and he seems more than happy to do just that.

During a press conference Wednesday, Trump said the July phone call he had with Zelensky was actually the second conversation between the two leaders, and he doesn't understand why no one's asked for the transcript of the first. "It was beautiful," he said, using similar language to his past descriptions of the July call. "It was just a perfect conversation."

Trump then went on to say that people might as well ask for Vice President Mike Pence's conversations with the Ukrainian leader, too. "He had a couple of conversations also," Trump said.

Who knows if Pence is thrilled with being thrown into the situation, but one person who probably doesn't want any more transcripts or memorandums released is Zelensky. Ukraine's president earlier Wednesday mostly defended the July call, saying he thought it was "normal," despite allegations that Trump pressured him to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's son. But Zelensky later seemed a little annoyed that his side of the July conversation was released to the public, Reuters reports, although the White House stressed it sought Kyiv's permission.

"I personally think that sometimes such calls between presidents of independent countries should not be published," Zelensky reportedly told Ukrainian media during a Wednesday briefing. "I just thought they would publish their part."

US Vice-president Mike Pence is to announce “clear actions” to tackle the growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, where at least four people were killed and hundreds injured during clashes between government forces and opposition activists this weekend.

Pence is in neighbouring Colombia today for a meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has asked the US and “other countries to consider ‘all options’ to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power”, reports The Guardian.

More than 50 countries including the US have recognised Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, after he secured the backing of opposition parties in the country's National Assembly, which he leads, to proclaim himself interim president in January.

But Maduro has dismissed Guaido as a “puppet” of Donald Trump’s government, and has closed Venezuela’s border with Brazil and shut down several crossings with Colombia. In the process, Maduro has blocked supplies of food and medicine from entering his country.

What happened over the weekend?

Clashes between opposition protesters and forces loyal to Maduro that began on Friday are “threatening the image of Guaido’s non-violent movement”, says The New York Times.

The border town of Santa Elena de Uairen saw the worst of the violence, with pro-government armed gangs and Venezuela’s military taking to the streets in a bid to disperse opposition supporters. At least four people were killed and a further 18 injured by gunfire, according to campaign group Foro Penal.

Elsewhere along the border with Colombia, aid vehicles were set on fire and pro-Maduro militias fired tear gas at protesting crowds, injuring hundreds.

“It was one of the outcomes we had imagined, but it wasn’t the one we wanted,” Armando Armas, an opposition lawmaker, told the Times. “We can’t expose our people any more. The entry of humanitarian aid can’t be the trigger of a wider conflict.”

But a senior Trump administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said: “What happened yesterday is not going to deter us from getting humanitarian aid into Venezuela.

“All [Maduro] demonstrated is he had enough henchmen to guard one end of three bridges in Colombia. That’s a tactical achievement for him. But it’s perishable.”

What might Pence and Guaido agree?

Pence will announce “concrete steps” and “clear actions” at a summit of the Lima Group - a bloc of 12 Latin American countries and Canada - in the Colombian capital Bogota on Monday, according to US officials. The vice-president will also have a one-on-one meeting with Guaido, although the US has not elaborated on exactly what kinds of measures might be declared.

In a clear hint that Guaido would support US military intervention in Venezuela, the opposition leader tweeted on Saturday: “The events of today oblige me to take a decision, to formally propose to the international community that we should keep all options open to achieve the liberation of our homeland.”

Trump did not immediately respond to Guaido, but the US leader said last month that “all options were on the table” and has “suggested invading Venezuela both in public and private”, notes The Guardian.

Asked whether the US would provide military assistance, if requested by Guaido, the anonymous US official said: “Ultimately, it would be a decision for the president to make.”

What happens next?

There have “always been strands of the Venezuelan opposition who have called for military intervention”, says The Guardian.

But exiled Venezuelan opposition leader David Smolansky, a close friend and ally of Guaido, told the newspaper that they were not asking for troops on the ground.

“It is still a peaceful movement,” he said. “Violence yesterday came from armed pro-government gangs and security forces.”

All the same, when pressed on whether he would support military intervention in the future, Smolansky declined to rule out the possibility, saying: “The only option we have is to restore democracy and freedom with internal and external pressure.”

According to US news site Axios, the driving force behind Trump’s hawkish Venezuela turn appears to be Pence, who isn’t the “impotent toady many assume him to be”.

Regardless of who is at the steering wheel, “the US rhetoric [has been] over the top”, said Charles S. Shapiro, a former ambassador to Venezuela. Shapiro claims the US response may have led some in the Venezuelan opposition to believe military assistance would be offered if Maduro continued to block aid deliveries.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been more circumspect than many of his colleagues, however. Pompeo told CNN that “further action will be contemplated” this week but that his government was focusing on sanctions, humanitarian aid and actions by Venezuelans themselves.

“The Venezuelan people will ultimately, I believe, hold accountable those who have done so much harm to the fundamental basic rights of the people of Venezuela,” he added.

The United States has taken an almost unprecedented step of officially declaring its support of an opposition candidate in Venezuela, following 35-year-old Juan Guaido’s public announcement that he is now the interim president.

The BBC reports that a number of South American nations, “including Brazil, Colombia and Peru, have also recognised Mr Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president”.

In a televised statement, US Vice President Mike Pence called on Venezuelan citizens to “make your voices heard” against President Nicolas Maduro, whom he called a “dictator with no legitimate claim to power”, Bloomberg says.

“The announcement came as thousands of Guaido backers took to the streets in a revitalized effort against Maduro, whose military response to the widespread demonstrations seemed more measured than in the past,” says CNN.

The BBC reports that under Manduro, “hyperinflation, power cuts and shortages of basic items have driven millions of people out of Venezuela”.

Maduro was sworn in for a second term earlier this month. However the election was marred by a boycott from opposition parties and widespread claims of vote rigging.

Maduro responded to the US calls to back Guaido by giving the US and its diplomatic staff 72 hours to leave the country.

Donald Trump has told reporters he is considering declaring a national emergency to secure funding to build a border wall between the US and Mexico.

“I may declare a national emergency dependent on what's going to happen over the next few days,” Trump said, following fruitless meetings with Democrats to find a solution to the political stalemate behind a partial government shutdown.

By declaring a national emergency, Trump would be able to use military funding to build a border wall.

Vice President Mike Pence held a meeting with congressional leaders yesterday, however after the meeting “there was little indication they were getting close to a deal to reopen the government”, CNN says.

The acting budget director Russell Vought did, however, provide more details for the funding request in a letter outlining billions of dollars worth of spending for which the Trump administration is holding out.

It includes $5.7 billion for a “steel barrier”, which Vought described as “a physical infrastructure to provide requisite impedance and denial”, along with a further $800 million to address “urgent humanitarian needs”.

Additionally, the letter calls for $798 million to fund more detention beds, and $571 million for an extra 2,000 law enforcement officers.

The Washington Post says that talks on the weekend to try to end the government shutdown failed in part because the White House “hasn’t been forthcoming about how the money would be used or why the request is for so much more than the administration sought only a few months ago”.

While President Trump sparred with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over funding his proposed border wall on Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence sat there silently for the entire 17 minutes, occasionally nodding or blinking. His stoicism amid the new onslaught of divided government did not go unnoticed online or on late-night television. The Daily Show's Trevor Noah compared him to "a guy whose edibles just kicked in," imagining him daydreaming about handmaids.

Stephen Colbert's Late Show imagined a longer internal monologue, with Pence meditating in a strange drawl: "I'm a manila envelope taped to a beige wall. No one can see me."

The Washington Post rounded up some other late-night quips about Pence.

Social media had a ball, too, comparing Pence to an Elf on the Shelf and an armadillo, giving his blank face a soundtrack, and imagining him silently plotting, patiently suffering the end of Trump's presidency so he could change the Oval Office carpet. You can watch CNN's Jeanne Moos wrap-up some of this fantasia below. Peter Weber

The hunt for a new White House Chief of Staff is set to continue, after Donald Trump, who first choice for a replacement for John Kelly declined to take on the role, citing family commitments.

36-year-old Nick Ayers had been widely tipped to replace Kelly, after relations between Kelly and Trump deteriorated to the point where they were “no longer on speaking terms”, with aides saying the relationship “cannot be repaired”, Sky News says.

Ayers, who is currently serving as the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, took to social media to announce that he would be leaving the White House entirely at the end of the year.

CNN says Ayers’ decision not to take on the role came because he “could not agree to terms” with Trump, who had asked Ayers for a two-year commitment to the role.

The Wall Street Journal says at least three people are now being considered for the job, including Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker and representative Mark Meadows from North Carolina.

Whoever takes on the role when Kelly leaves at the end of this month will be Trump’s third Chief of Staff in just two years.

Donald Trump wasted no time labelling the author of an anonymous New York Times editorial detailing chaos in his White House a traitor.

The damning op-ed by a “senior administration official” has divided opinion and sparked a Washington guessing game about who the author could be – and what their real motives are.

The Week looks at five of the most likely culprits:

The vice president

The theory that Vice President Mike Pence wrote the article largely stems from its use of the word “lodestar”.

The New York Times piece refers to the late Republican Senator John McCain as a “lodestar for restoring honour to public life and our national dialogue”.

The term, meaning “star that leads or guides”, is a relatively rare word, but “one which the vice-president has frequently used”, says the BBC.

“The vice president is all smiles, nods and quiet, deferential loyalty in public, which of course means that he has the perfect cover to write something like this in The New York Times” says CNN, adding he “is also ambitious - and there's no question he wants to be president”.

The ‘resistance’

Newly-released extracts from veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s explosive tell-all book about life inside the Trump White House paint a portrait of a president effectively kept in check by those around him.

The anonymous author of the op-ed termed this group “the resistance”. It is not known exactly who is part of this not-so-secret cabal keeping the world safe but several senior White House officials have been implicated.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has fiercely denied writing the editorial, attacking the writer as a “disgruntled deceptive bad actor”.

Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, also issued a denial saying the speculation that he or his deputy wrote the op-ed was “patently false”, reports The Guardian.

The Independent reports that some of Trump's supporters have suggested that the Times op-ed is part of a “trap” and a “soft coup” against the Republican leader.

Andy Smarick, conservative policy expert at R Street, suggests the culprit might be driven by more personal reasons, writing on Twitter: “It is an apologia. Someone is doing his/her best to defend and explain his/her decision to work there.... I suspect that the author — and others in similar situations — recognizes that the chances of the future judging this administration kindly are now infinitesimal.”

The Republicans

This brings us to the president’s own party, the majority of whom have remained remarkably loyal and/or silent over the past two years.

But with numerous scandals brewing and the president’s approval ratings tanking, some believe the letter was a “PR stunt” designed to distance the Republican Party from Trump in the run-up to November's mid-term elections.

The New York Times

The theory that New York Times hacks penned the op-ed themselves, posited by the president himself, has little going for it apart from playing into Trump’s narrative about a coordinated liberal media conspiracy to bring him down, led by the “failing” New York Times.

If it did by any chance turn out to be true, however, it is not unreasonable to think it could be the nail in the coffin for America’s paper of record.

Donald Trump

Admittedly more than a little far-fetched, this theory makes more sense when viewed in the context of the prevalent idea among Trump’s loyal support base that the establishment is conspiring to undermine the president.

To this end, the BBC’s North America editor Jon Sopel suggested the article would play into Trump’s long-standing narrative of a deep state operating behind the scenes to thwart him.

The National Football League (NFL) has announced a new policy for 2018 that will see teams fined if their players or officials kneel in protest during the US national anthem.

In 2016 a movement started when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick “refused to stand for the anthem”, the BBC reports, in protest of police brutality against African Americans.

A number of players across the NFL followed Kaepernick’s lead, which led to many Americans - including President Donald Trump - accusing the protesters of being unpatriotic.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said yesterday that the team owners had agreed on the new policy, but there has been huge backlash from players, fans and the NFL Players Association, which says it was not consulted on the changes.

In a statement, Goodell said: “The policy adopted today was approved in concert with the NFL’s ongoing commitment to local communities and our country - one that is extraordinary in its scope, resources, and alignment with our players.

“We are dedicated to continuing our collaboration with players to advance the goals of justice and fairness in all corners of our society. It was unfortunate that on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic. This is not and was never the case.”

How the national anthem policy works:

• Players and league personnel on the sidelines are required to stand
• They have the option to remain in the locker room if they don’t want to stand
• Individual clubs will have the power to set their own policies to ensure the anthem is being respected during any on-field action
• If a player chooses to protest on the sideline, the NFL will fine the team
• The player also could be fined by his team

‘A victory for Trump’

In its report titled ‘Bowing to Trump, NFL will require players to stand for anthem’ Reuters says that yesterday’s ruling is a victory for the US President who “loudly demanded an end to such protests last year”.

US Vice-President Mike Pence had his say on the matter and thanked the NFL for its new measures. Pence tweeted: “Today’s decision by the @NFL is a win for the fans, a win for @POTUS, and a win for America. Americans can once again come together around what unites us - our flag, our military, and our National Anthem. Thank you NFL. #ProudToStand.”

Reactions to the anthem policy

In response to yesterday’s news the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) revealed that it had no input on the new policy. In a statement the NFLPA said: “The NFL chose to not consult the union in the development of this new ‘policy’. NFL players have shown their patriotism through their social activism, their community service, in support of our military and law enforcement and yes, through their protests to raise awareness about the issues they care about.”

New York Jets chairman Christopher Johnson has “backed the players’ right to protest” and any fines will be paid for by the organisation, not the player. He told Newsday: “I do not like imposing any club-specific rules. If somebody [on the Jets] takes a knee, that fine will be borne by the organisation, by me, not the players. I never want to put restrictions on the speech of our players. Do I prefer that they stand? Of course. But I understand if they felt the need to protest.

“There are some big, complicated issues that we’re all struggling with, and our players are on the front lines. I don’t want to come down on them like a ton of bricks, and I won’t. There will be no club fines or suspensions or any sort of repercussions. If the team gets fined, that’s just something I’ll have to bear.”

San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York abstained from yesterday’s vote, NFL.com reports, because he “did not feel there was enough player involvement in the process”.

York said: “I’m hopeful that, with our players, they know that I will stand up for them. I’ve stood up for them in the past, I’ll stand up for them in the future. I hope that we can have a good, respectful conversation of, ‘Is it the best policy for us to write a check to the league? Or can we find a better way to use this money?’. That’s a conversation that I would like to have with our players. But I’m not going to force anybody to do anything that they’re uncomfortable with.”

Quoted by ESPN, Denver Broncos centre Matt Paradis said: “I can speak for myself: I’ll be out there, standing for the anthem. When it comes to the team policy, that’s something as a team we’ll have to get into that. The union, the same thing. We’ll have to consult with them. The owners, they are the employers, so if they want to create a stipulation, we’ll take it from there.”

While Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott added: “I’m glad they came to an agreement in some form or another. I’ll be out there standing.”

How the media reacted

‘NFL anthem policy may as well call black players sons of bitches’

Les Carpenter, The Guardian: “The protest was - and always has been - a way to draw attention to racial injustice in America. It was supposed to start a long overdue national conversation. Instead, Trump seized upon it as way to throw red meat to the red states, twisting something productive into an attack on patriotism, the military and the nation itself.”

‘NFL’s national anthem proposal is a cop out, not a solution’

Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press: “Leave it to the NFL to make a tricky situation worse. Of course, the only value the NFL truly cares about is money, and Wednesday’s vote proves once again that cold, hard cash doesn’t always come with a backbone.”

‘Don’t expect players to take the policy sitting down’

Adam Stites, SB Nation: “Perhaps on-field protests during the national anthem will be curbed, but don’t expect all forms of player protest to disappear, or for players to quiet down.”

‘Policy crushes dissent, sparks ugly war on human rights’

Sarah McLaughlin, New York Daily News: “Let’s dispatch with the easy questions. The NFL and its teams haven’t violated the First Amendment by setting these rules. The relationships between player, team and league are governed by contract, not the Constitution. Instead, the question we should be asking ourselves is not about whether the NFL can suppress dissent, but whether it should?”

‘NFL’s new anthem policy destined to fail’

Editorial, Pro Football Weekly: “Our purpose at Pro Football Weekly is neither politics nor patriotism. Do we have personal opinions on this subject? Of course we do. We have the ultimate respect for all of your beliefs, and do not believe we are the appropriate arbiters of right or wrong on this particular topic. But what we can say in loud and very clear language is the league’s new policy does nothing to mitigate the issues likely to arise from what is almost certain to come next as a result of this new policy, and both the policy and the commissioner’s statement are a classic case of ownership throwing its players under the bus while caving to political pressure in an attempt to have their cake and eat it, too.”

US Vice President Mike Pence was set to meet senior North Korean officials during his visit to the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, however according to new reports Pyongyang pulled out of the meeting just hours before it was due to go ahead.

The meeting with the North Korean delegation, which included Kim Yo Jong, the youngest sister of leader Kim Jong Un and North Korea’s nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam, would have been the first official contact between the two countries since Donald Trump took office.

“North Korea dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which would have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics,” Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers, said.

CNN reports that Trump gave the meeting a green light, “with the caveat that the United States wouldn’t back off its stated demand that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons.”

According to the Washington Post, the cancellation of the meeting came after Pence again publicly denounced Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions and announced the “toughest and most aggressive” sanctions against the regime.

Pence’s office has since said that the cancellation of the meeting was an indication of the success of the Vice President’s effort to combat North Korea’s plan to use the Winter Games for propaganda purposes.

The Los Angeles Times says that the meeting between Pence and the North Koreans was “not intended to serve as any sort of de-escalation of the administration's stance against North Korea,” citing a senior White House official.

Vice President Mike Pence met his wife, Karen, at church while he was studying in law school; their first date was a dinner of taco salad. "Karen carried a gold cross with the word 'yes' on it in her purse in anticipation of the moment when Mike would propose," Rolling Stone writes. The two have been married since 1985, and have three children together.

But Pence apparently has a somewhat strange way of addressing Karen, Rolling Stone reports:

Read the full story on Vice President Pence at Rolling Stone.