A Year At The Circus

by Jon Sopel

  By the time the news conference with Monsieur Macron had ended you just felt that the admiral, who had never sought the role of VA Secretary, was left swinging in the wind. His name and public reputation irreparably tarnished. His family watching powerless as a husband and father was put through the political mincer. He had entered the Trump planetary orbit a hero and got burned up leaving it. A cautionary tale, indeed.

  In early 2019 the President announced that Jackson would make a return – of sorts. His title would be Assistant to the President and Chief Medical Advisor. In that position, Jackson would no longer provide medical care at the White House but instead would provide ‘technical policy advice’ on public health issues within the administration, according to an administration official. Meanwhile the Department of Defense was continuing its ethical investigation into Mr Jackson’s treatment of colleagues and whether he dispensed medicines improperly.

  In February 2019 a new doctor conducted the President’s annual physical. The only change from the previous year: Donald Trump had put on four pounds in weight and was therefore technically obese. No news conference was held. Just a one-page summary released, as quietly as possible.

  Chapter 7

  The Office of the Vice-President

  Let’s make a distinction at the outset of this chapter between the office of the vice-president, and the vice-president’s office. The vice-president’s office is situated on the same floor of the West Wing as the president’s. While the Oval Office is on the south-east corner of the building, the VP’s office is on the west side. He also has a suite of grand offices next door at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, entered via room 274 (just in case you ever find yourself wandering the corridors there), which houses his handpicked team of policy advisors, press officers and legislative assistants.

  The office of the vice-president is harder – and more interesting – to define. John Adams, America’s first ever vice-president (to George Washington), bemoaned the post as ‘the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived’. John Nance Garner is probably not someone you have heard of, unless you are a student of these things. This Democratic Party politician from Texas was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1902 and was there for thirty years. After this long stint in the House he challenged for the Democratic Party nomination for president, but was beaten by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He would become FDR’s vice-president – and he summed up the augustness and majesty of this lofty position that he held by saying the office was ‘not worth a barrel of warm spit’. Actually he said it was not worth a pitcher of warm piss, but that was not something you could say in polite society, so the quote got sanitised. Spit apparently more respectful than urine.

  Or let’s put it in the context of a television programme and a film. Is the office of the vice-president ‘Veep’ – or is it ‘Vice’? And if you’re not familiar with either, Veep is the satire created by Armando Iannucci, in which the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is Vice-President of the United States, Selina Meyer, and desperate to make her mark and an impact. Except she finds the job one long exercise in frustration, humiliation and impotence – as she is routinely overruled, demeaned and marginalised by a White House that sees her for the most part as an irrelevance, except for the occasions when she can be deployed to clear up the most unpleasant messes where there is no glory to be had. In Vice, Christian Bale turns in a phenomenal performance as the utterly non-fictional Dick Cheney, the Vice-President to George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. This portrayal depicts a vice-president as an all-powerful puppet master, in charge of policy, in charge of strategy, in charge of the president.

  But are those the two poles on which you assess a vice-president? Even if the reality is Veep and not Vice, the thing that keeps you going, the reason you get up each morning in the delightful mansion housed inside the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, next door to the British Embassy, is that that same morning, the president might not. You are, in that famous phrase, whose provenance is contested, a heartbeat away from the presidency.

  According to Safire’s Political Dictionary, the aphorism ‘heartbeat away from the presidency’ dates from 1952, when the Democratic nominee, Adlai Stevenson, attacked the Republican VP candidate, a 39-year-old by the name of Richard Nixon, ‘who asks you to place him a heartbeat from the presidency’. Fifty years earlier, William McKinley’s campaign manager, Mark Hanna, alarmed by the thought of 41-year-old Teddy Roosevelt as nominee for vice-president, is reported to have warned ‘that there is only one life between the Vice-President and the Chief Magistracy of the nation’.

  And you can be sure, when Donald Trump went knocking on the door of a relatively little-known governor from Indiana to be his running mate, that would have been one of the thoughts that flashed across Mike Pence’s mind. At 13 years younger than the man he would be deputy to, it would have been unnatural if he hadn’t thought, ‘One day it could be me.’ And Pence, having lived a life less heavily populated by Big Macs, fries and Diet Coke, would have had more reason than most to think of heartbeats.

  Without being too morbid about this, the odds that you’d get at the bookies aren’t that bad on the VP succeeding the president – and that is not a comment on the state of Donald Trump’s health, or his genes or life expectancy. It is an actuarial point. It is more about being an underwriter than an undertaker. Of the 45 men who have held the post of president of the United States, eight have come to the job as a result of the death of the incumbent: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson, seeing as you ask. The one other vice-president to make the transition was, of course, Gerald Ford, who stepped up when Richard Nixon was forced to step down.

  They are the ‘accidental presidents’. A book by a former White House staffer Jared Cohen called Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America charts the relative success of these men. The book finds that most performed well when given the highest responsibility. One or two were dismal failures. But it is the system of choosing the vice-president that is so bizarre. It is seldom that a running mate is selected on the one basis that truly matters – how would they acquit themselves if faced with the daunting prospect of running the country? Were they temperamentally suited, did they have the policy knowledge, would they carry on from where the president left off? If you look at some of the people who’ve been asked to be ‘on the ticket’ it is almost comical to think that they were that one heartbeat away. Sarah Palin, who was John McCain’s extraordinary choice of running mate in his unsuccessful fight against Barack Obama in 2008, was immensely entertaining – but a future president? The governor of Alaska was so gaffe prone that the mere mention of her name became a laugh line for American comedians.

  Mike Pence is not in the least gaffe prone. Where she was bright, exuberant and colourful, he is drab and slightly grey. And that is exactly what Donald Trump wanted and needed. Remember that when Trump won the Republican nomination it was as much a surprise to Donald Trump as it was to everyone else. He had done on it on gut, determination and by breaking every rule in the conventional campaign book. He had not spent a whole lot of time thinking about who his running mate should be; he hated the idea of having a transition team who would plan his first days in the White House if he won it. Mike Pence was a blurry, indistinct microdot on the edge of a radar screen when the Indiana primary came around in that long and seemingly endless road towards the nomination. He was a Republican governor, of a small Midwest state who seemed to be looking for a horse to back. The two had never met.

  Pence had gained a certain prominence – or perhaps that should be notoriety – when as Governor he signed into state law something called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It is so innocuous sounding – which right-thinking person would, after all, object to religious freedom? But the legislation was seen by opponents as a new front in the ‘culture wars’ that have divided America for half a century. The
battle between liberal and conservative America; the fight over abortion, homosexuality, the permissive society, racial discrimination, guns etc etc. The religious freedom law would allow businesses to refuse service to the LGBTQ community if the owners felt their religious convictions were being compromised by doing so. So if you were a baker in Indiana and someone came into your shop to order a wedding cake for their gay marriage, under this law it seemed you would have the legal right to refuse. The first actual business to announce that it would be putting this into practice was a family-owned business called Memories Pizza. It put out a statement that while it would continue to serve gay people in its restaurants, it wouldn’t cater a gay wedding, as the family thought same-sex marriages to be wrong. When the legislation was passed and the Indiana Governor was asked in an interview on network television whether businesses would now be allowed to discriminate against gay people, Mike Pence repeatedly sidestepped the question, telling the interviewer that he was missing the point – though quite what the point was remained elusive.

  The law brought condemnation from corporate America, with Apple and the pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly and Walmart leading the way. Mike Pence would later complain that the law was being misunderstood; that it was all a matter of sloppy reporting and wilful misrepresentation – it was a taste of what was to come with the President’s regular barrages against fake news and the press being the enemy of the people.

  Pence will tell anyone who will listen that he sees himself as a Christian first, a conservative second and a Republican third. This whole episode, however, had raised his national profile, as a solid voice of the evangelical right. It also meant he was the sort of big name endorsement that Republican hopefuls sought. Pence contacted Chris Christie, then the Governor of New Jersey and close confidant of Donald Trump, to see if a meeting could be organised ahead of the Indiana primary. Trump thought the meeting was well worth taking, so he flew with Christie on the Trump plane to Indianapolis. The first meeting was businesslike – the New York showmen discuss the state of the nation and all that was wrong with it with the earnest Governor. Trump was ready to leave and muttered something about there being lots of things that needed to be done back at home. According to Christie, Pence then says to Trump, ‘Before you go do you think we could just join hands and say a prayer?’ This startles Trump – this is not his MO in Trump Tower meetings or aboard the Trump plane, even in times of serious turbulence. After they left, Trump wanted to know whether Pence always did this. Christie told him he did. Apparently, Trump answered with one word: ‘Interesting.’

  But the great New York ‘art of the deal’ maestro had not done enough to get the deal over the line – Pence backed Ted Cruz instead for the Republican nomination – a decision that brought a furious complaint from Trump to Christie: ‘Are you kidding me? You take me out to see this guy and then the guy screws me? He stabs me in the back by endorsing Cruz?’

  It looked as though that would be enough to ensure that Pence would forever be cast into outer darkness; Trump being a man who has shown that he nurses his grievances attentively. Christie certainly thought so. Which was good news – because when Trump did eventually secure the Republican nomination, the New Jersey Governor felt that the nominee had as good as promised him that he was going to be the other name on the ticket.

  In Christie’s version of events Trump had asked Christie; and Christie had said yes. But it would have been a foolish move, given the way politics is conducted in the US. What would have been the net gain to have had the New Jersey Governor as your wing man? Remember that the question Trump needed to ask himself was not whether Christie could one day step up to the plate and take over the presidency. That was the last thing on Trump’s mind. It was whether his running mate would bring him extra votes. In that respect Trump played it like every other conventional politician. The VP is there to help you win, not to help you govern.

  In Chris Christie you had someone cut from the same cloth as Donald Trump – albeit rather more cloth. They were from neighbouring East Coast states; they were both loud and outgoing; they were pugilists who enjoyed nothing more than a good scrap. They were both better at fighting than praying. But Christie believed that because of Trump’s antipathy towards convention and the two of them being personally close, that would be enough to ensure his eventual selection.

  In the end there was a very Trumpian beauty parade – although minus the swimsuit round, mercifully. Each potential running mate was brought out before the cameras to spend a day campaigning with Donald Trump. Trump wanted to test out the ‘personal chemistry’; to figure out if they could get along. It was eventually whittled down to three names – Chris Christie, Mike Pence and the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich.

  Christie, however, was being blocked by the powerful combination of Jared Kushner and Ivanka. Because there was bad blood, really bad blood, between Jared Kushner and Chris Christie, dating back many years. You see, over a decade earlier, Christie had been responsible for putting Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, away in prison. Just so you don’t think that all dramatic plot twists are monopolised by the Trump family, this too is quite something. Indeed, it probably eclipses any Trump drama.

  Like the Trumps, the Kushners were also billionaire property people in New York. Charles Kushner, a huge Democratic Party donor, ran the business and had fallen out (in the way of family businesses) with his sister Esther and her husband Bill Schulder. So far so normal. They felt they were being pushed out, and were suing Charles. But Mr Kushner thought they were ungrateful parasites. He would deal with this in his own way, and teach them a lesson they would never forget. They would know never again to tangle with Charles Kushner. Kushner knew that Bill had a bit of a weakness for women. So, via a private detective, Kushner employs the services of a high-class blonde-haired prostitute from New York’s Upper East Side called Susanna. He had set up his own brother-in-law with a hooker as a way of scaring off his sister from interfering in the business.

  The call girl’s job was to entrap Bill at a motel in Somerville, New Jersey. She goes to a diner where he is a regular, says her car has broken down and needs help. He gallantly offers to help, and she wants to express her ‘appreciation’. A miniature camera is placed in an alarm clock in her room at the Red Bull Motel (cue easy jokes). Bill succumbs to Susanna’s undoubted charms, and hey presto, a highly compromising XXX videotape is born. On the day that Bill and Esther’s son is due to get engaged, a brown manila envelope plops onto their doorstep, with some action photos from the video. There’s no message, but Charles Kushner’s sister is convinced it has all the vindictive hallmarks of her brother. It is the spring of 2004 when she decides to put this in the hands of her lawyer. He contacts a federal prosecutor by the name of Chris Christie, who takes the case. The FBI get involved and eventually the trail leads straight back to Charles Kushner. After much haggling over plea deals, in 2005 Charles Kushner pleads guilty to a wide array of charges and is sentenced to two years in prison. Something that Jared would never forget Chris Christie’s role in – or, it seems, forgive.

  With Christie having been given the ‘black spot’ by the Ivanka and Jared axis, and Gingrich – for all the talk – never really a contender, the path was clear for Mike Pence. When Christie was eventually told by Trump that he was no longer being considered, Trump lauded Pence by saying he was straight out of central casting. He would be the ‘balance’ on the ticket. If there were Republicans out there who thought that Donald Trump was just some New York liberal, mouthing conservative platitudes on abortion and guns just to get himself the nomination, that was never an accusation that would be levelled at Mike Pence. He is the real deal, Bible Belt Christian – and was a smart, strategic addition to the Trump campaign. Another attraction was that he was never going to compete with Trump for the limelight, as Christie might have done. He would be happy to be in the shadows. And there was something else too. With his grey hair went a reassuringly grey image, another goo
d counterpoint to the erratic and unpredictable man at the top of the ticket.

  They are not soul-mates; it’s not the kind of buddy-buddy ‘bromance’ that Barack Obama and Joe Biden sometimes gave an impression of. Pence is not a man with whom Trump would choose to spend his down time. For one thing, he is not a golfer – and nearly all Donald Trump’s leisure time is spent on one or other of the golf courses he owns. To think he berated Obama for the amount of time he spent going from tee to green. If there’s a weekend that goes by without the President taking off to play golf, it’s only because the weather is too bad for him to go out. Anyway, that is an aside. Trump and Pence is a perfectly workable businesslike relationship, and that hasn’t always been the case.

  For unlikely characters brought together out of necessity, the decision by John F. Kennedy to ask Lyndon B. Johnson to be his running mate in 1960 after Kennedy had won the nomination is a remarkable story. The privileged northern, liberal, highly educated circle around the young JFK looked at LBJ (quite important, it seems, in US politics to have three initials that just string together) with a mixture of contempt and fear. Lyndon Johnson had been the main challenger to Kennedy for the Democratic nomination. As he travelled around, LBJ would refer to JFK as ‘Johnny’ or ‘the boy’ – terms deliberately designed to belittle the junior senator from Massachusetts. The circle around the senator from Texas – who was also the majority leader, a position that confers immense power – were even more disparaging about the young Catholic senator from Massachusetts, born to that storied and wealthy family. Kennedy was a ‘silver spoon’ liberal who had had it easy. He didn’t know what life was about. LBJ’s people also spread stories about Kennedy’s health, saying he suffered from Addison’s disease. The Kennedy camp fiercely denied what was then seen as a smear against their man. A Kennedy physician was wheeled out. She insisted that the candidate’s adrenal gland was functioning normally. History would show that the fake news was not the allegation, but the Kennedy camp’s response to it. He did have Addison’s; and he was taking large doses of cortisone.