The Trump/Pence administration hasn’t even taken office and CBS is already going negative. CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose on Thursday reminded Vice-President-elect Mike Pence just how unpopular the team would be. He also lectured Pence about social media: “You've been asked this before, I'm sure, are the Tweets, A, necessary, B, distracting. And does [Trump] have to tilt at every windmill that criticizes him?”
After the incoming VP defended Trump’s tweeting, Pence sputtered, “So, you’re okay with that?” As though Rose were talking to Trump and not Pence, the journalist huffed, “You enter this White House and this city with the lowest approval ratings of any person who has assumed the presidency. What kind of challenge is that, and at the same time, how important is it to double the efforts to reunite?”
The new vice president cited liberal media bias as a reason to go around the press: “I will tell you some of the treatment he's gotten and we continue to get in the media is frustrating .” Defending the tweets, he hailed Trump’s “ability to literally reach tens of millions of people with his particular issue or of a particular issue.”
Considering that journalists used Obama’s final press conference to worry about Trump, there may be a need to go around the press.
A transcript of the segment is below:
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CBS TM
1/19/17
7:11:42 to 7:14:06CHARLIE ROSE: Vice President-elect Mike Pence is helping the incoming administration set a broad policy agenda. Pressure will be on him and President-elect Trump to unify a divided country and Congress. We spoke with Pence yesterday from our set on the national mall in Washington about the expectations and the transition. As you know, you enter this White House and this city with the lowest approval ratings of any person who has assumed the presidency. What kind of challenge is that, and at the same time, how important is it to double the efforts to reunite?
MIKE PENCE: I think the American people are going to see a president inaugurated this Friday who is going to keep the promise he made on election night, president of all of the people of this country. The polls weren't always right during the election year and so I'm a little skeptical about the polls going into the inauguration. But I can tell you the president-elect and our whole team are ready to go to work and really just advance the kind of policies that, to borrow his phrase, will make America great again.
ROSE: You've been asked this before, I’m sure, are the Tweets, A, necessary, B, distracting? And does he have to tilt at every windmill that criticizes him?
PENCE: You know, I think one of the really refreshing things about the President-elect is that he speaks his mind. Sometimes he does that from a podium. Sometimes he does that in an interview. Sometimes he does it on Twitter.
ROSE: Does it get in the way of his message on the economy and foreign policy?
PENCE: I don't believe it does. I really don’t believe it does, Charlie.
ROSE: So, you’re okay with that?
PENCE: Yeah. I will tell you some of the treatment he's gotten and we continue to get in the media is frustrating and his ability to literally reach tens of millions of people with his particular issue or of a particular issue or a particular news is of value to the administration. I expect him to continue to see him use that. You are going to see a President Donald Trump who will use that bully pulpit in new and 21st century ways to communicate our agenda to the American people and marshal the kind of support to bring real change to Washington, D.C. and restore our economy and our place in the world.
[Interview ends. Back to studio.]
ROSE: Wow. Pence also said the president-elect is confident in the team he chose to lead in the intelligence community that Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized. Regarding his own role, the Vice President-elect said, “I'm just here to serve.”
