Pence Says State Dept. Officials’ Testimony Shows Trump Must ‘Drain The Swamp’

Vice President Mike Pence attends a press conference after a meeting with Turkish President in Ankara, Turkey on October 17, 2019. (Photo by ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

In the wake of the explosive Tuesday testimony from career diplomat Bill Taylor, the White House continued to rail against House’s impeachment inquiry.

Although Vice President Mike Pence has yet to directly comment on Taylor’s bombshell 15-page written statement to Congress — which discussed texts, phone calls, and meetings laying out the quid pro quo that President Trump has repeatedly denied — he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in a Tuesday night segment that the ongoing testimonies by career diplomats as part of the impeachment inquiry only reinforce the Trump administration’s need to “drain the swamp.”

“There is no question when President Trump said we were going to drain the swamp, but an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up in the State Department bureaucracy and we’re just going to keep fighting it,” Pence said. “And we are going to fight it with the truth.”

Pence’s reaction echoed that of White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, who said in a statement earlier Tuesday that Taylor’s testimony was a “coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.”

When pressed by Ingraham on whether he was ever comfortable with Rudy Giuliani’s role in the Ukraine pressure campaign, Pence demurred, saying his own “involvement in Ukraine was all directly from my conversations with the President, and my conversations and meetings with President Zelensky.”

“We were supporting and encouraging Ukraine to deal with years of corruption and calling on European allies to do more to support the Ukraine people,” Pence said.

Watch Pence’s remarks below:

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. Pence translator: “drain Trump from the swamp. I’m pretending to support him but I want to be president.”

  2. Avatar for erik_t erik_t says:

    :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: Somebody remembered to water the Vice President.

  3. Sorry VP Eschaton. You are already implicated in the extortion of a needy foreign country for your own political gain.

  4. Since the roots of the Republican Cypress trees are all in the swamp, I’m pretty sure they will fight to make sure it’s never drained.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

73 more replies

Participants

Avatar for paulw Avatar for austin_dave Avatar for ghost Avatar for bryan Avatar for sysprog Avatar for dv01 Avatar for desertrain Avatar for bluinmaine Avatar for sparrowhawk Avatar for drriddle Avatar for lastroth Avatar for quin Avatar for midnight_rambler Avatar for esva Avatar for mbender Avatar for tena Avatar for dannydorko Avatar for erik_t Avatar for demosthenes59 Avatar for redhand Avatar for zenicetus Avatar for rascal_crone Avatar for emiliano4 Avatar for WayOutWest

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: