Imagine you hear about a job opening, and you think you’d be perfect for the position. It’s the sort of job that you’ve wanted for a long time, and you realize opportunities like these don’t come along often.
Naturally, you’d pursue it, write your best cover letter, send in your best CV and prepare to make a pitch in support of your application. There is, however, a rather important problem hanging overhead: what became of the person who held the position before it became vacant.
“Yeah, it’s a real shame what happened,” your prospective employer tells you. “The last guy refused to commit crimes for me, so I deployed a violent mob to his office. It was touch-and-go for a while, especially when the mob threatened to hang him. In fact, I ended up endangering the guy and his immediate family, shortly before I told the public that the whole mess was his fault.”
At that point, your prospective employer asks: “You still want the job, right?”
If it were me, that would be around the time I start looking for the exit door. Sure, it might be a great gig, but there are other great gigs, and some employers are better off avoided.
You probably see where I’m going with this.
As Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio joins Donald Trump’s ticket, it’s hard not to wonder whether the young senator is feeling a little nervous — not about entering the national spotlight, but about taking the job that used to belong to former Vice President Mike Pence.
As it turns out, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Vance about this in May. “You said you’d certainly be open to [the vice presidential nomination] if he did offer it to you,” the host noted. “Considering that, does it give you any pause whatsoever about taking that job when you see how he treated his last vice president?”
Vance not only disagreed, he challenged the premise of the question.
“Okay, well, I’m truly skeptical that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger. I think politics and politics people like to really exaggerate things from time to time,” the Senate Republican said.
As for the Jan. 6 rioters who literally chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” Vance said that “a few people” said “some bad things,” but he insisted it was “absurd” to hold Trump accountable for his radical followers’ rhetoric. Vance’s comments come three years after Trump personally defended rioters’ “Hang Mike Pence” chants, describing the mantra as “commonsense.” Whether Vance is willing to acknowledge this or not, when Pence was evacuated from his ceremonial office and directed to a secure location on Jan. 6, investigators ultimately learned that, at one point, the vice president and the mob were separated by only 40 feet. A Proud Boys informant told the FBI that members of the right-wing group attacking the Capitol “would have killed Mike Pence if given a chance.” A Washington Post analysis published two years ago highlighted the specific instances in which “Pence’s life was in particular danger on Jan. 6, 2021.” In fact, rioters were eager to target Pence when they arrived on Capitol Hill, but Trump also lashed out at his vice president during the riot. As one former White House aide said in recorded testimony, that had the effect of “pouring gasoline on the fire.” Looking ahead, Vance is apparently confident that he’ll succeed where Pence failed. He’s probably right: The Ohioan is on record saying he would’ve rejected the 2020 election results on Jan. 6 if he’d been vice president at the time.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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