Vice-president elect Mike Pence is preparing to become the top liaison between President-elect Trump and Congress, a role that many lawmakers see as critical, and one that will require Pence to do everything from negotiating his directives in the House and Senate to interpreting Trump's tweets.
"I think Pence is going to have a very big role," Senate Republican Conference Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told the Washington Examiner after meeting privately with him on Wednesday.
With a little more than two weeks to go until he's sworn in as vice president, Pence is already serving as chief Trump translator. During a closed-door meeting with House GOP lawmakers on Wednesday, Pence explained to lawmakers a series of cryptic healthcare policy tweets Trump posted to Twitter, softening the president-elect's seemingly out-of-the-blue warning that the GOP repeal the healthcare law in a "careful" manner that does not leave people stranded.
"Look, we're talking about peoples' lives, we're talking about families," Pence said in reference to the Trump tweet. "But we are also talking about a policy that has been a failure virtually since its inception and we intend to, over the course of the coming days and weeks, to be speaking directly to the American people about that failure."
Republican lawmakers said they welcomed Pence's involvement, which will be a stark departure from the Obama administration's estrangement from Capitol Hill.
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01.12.2025