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As chief of the Trump administrations coronavirus task force, Vice President Mike Pence has upped his profile plenty on the public radar. Mr. Pence is also getting good reviews.

Hes a daily, consistent presence on the airwaves. He provides useful info rather than random digressions. He leans on health and medical experts both at public events and behind the scenes, write Axios co-founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, in a review of this uncommon surge.

It is his presidential moment, they say.

Pence, 60, a likely contender for the Republican nomination in 2024, has become one of the most praised administration officials during the virus crisis, they note.

Tech author Scott Galloway said the vice president had done a reasonably good job while Politico media columnist Jack Shafer said Mr. Pence acted less like the coronavirus czar and more like a good old-fashioned White House press secretary. He was calm. He was direct. He was polite in face of shouted, competing questions.

Mr. Pences chief of staff Marc Short tells Axios that the vice president has an understanding of what people are looking for facts that are straightforward, not alarmist.

Most importantly, Pence seems on the level. The more Americans see of him, the more likely they are to believe what the administration says about this crisis, provided that Pences statements about the pandemic hold up over time, advises Paul Mirengoff, a columnist at Powerline.com.

REASSURING NEWS

Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults assess the strength of U.S. national defense as being about right, two points off the record-high 64% from 1990. About twice as many say U.S. defense is not strong enough (25%) as say it is stronger than it needs to be (12%), reports Gallup analyst Jeffrey M. Jones, who adds that the majority of Americans are also comfortable with the amount of military spending.

At a time when Americans are relatively satisfied with the strength of the U.S. military and the amount of military spending, 58% say the U.S. is No. 1 in the world militarily, writes Mr. Jones. See more numbers in the Poll du Jour at columns end.

A TEMPORARY TRUCE FOR GOP, DEMOCRATS?

As public alarm grows over the coronavirus health emergency, one veteran columnist has a simple panacea which could at least get the nation through the next month: Neutralize the bitter sparring between Democrats and President Trump.

Its time to do something about our national divide. A 30-day political cease-fire is reasonable and doable. We must take a break from the hate, writes New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin.

A month would be a good cooling-off period to allow the public-health emergency to take its rightful place at the top of the agenda without the distraction of personal sniping, which is especially demoralizing these days. In this environment, each attack smacks of pettiness and politics-as-usual. Partisanship has an important role in our enduring experiment with self-government, but not now. Now is the time for a united America to mobilize against a lethal scourge, he continues.

A 30-day cease-fire would allow the entire nation to focus on saving lives and preventing further disaster to the economy and jobs. There would be plenty of time later to resume the political hostilities before the November election, Mr. Goodwin advises. An agreement would be nice, but isnt necessary. All they need do is start behaving as Americans first and partisans second.

BORDERING ON INSANITY

In the wake of the pared-down Democratic presidential field, one GOP official has a reminder.

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are leading the Democrat Partys charge for open borders. And theyre sounding like the same person: Biden has promised to end illegal immigration detention across the board, and to not deport illegal immigrants who have committed felony-like offenses, points out Steve Guest, rapid response communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Bernie backs a moratorium on all deportations of illegal immigrants in the U.S. and says that it is not appropriate to deport illegal immigrants not following law in the U.S. And both Biden and Bernie support government health care for illegal immigrants. Bottom Line: While Bernie and Biden push for plans that would make the border crisis worse, President Trumps deal with Mexico has achieved results, Mr. Guest advises, citing a single Associated Press headline regarding the outcome of Mr. Trumps productive call to Mexico to help with the illegal immigration challenge:

AP exclusive: Border apprehensions drop for eight straight months.

HELPFUL DIVERSION

Just because coronavirus has you avoiding public spaces doesnt mean you cant get cultured from home, reports Fast Company analyst Lilly Smith, who shares all the details.

Google Arts & Culture has partnered with over 2,500 museums and galleries around the world, including Amsterdams Van Gogh Museum, Londons National Gallery, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The featured collections vary depending on the museum, but most include online exhibits, a street view that lets you explore inside the institution itself, as well as galleries of the artwork, where you can deep dive into paintings, Ms. Smith advises.

Find it all at Artsandculture.google.com/partner.

POLL DU JOUR

63% of U.S. adults say its important for the U.S. to be the No. 1 military force in the world; 86% of Republicans, 56% of independents and 45% of Democrats agree.

62% overall say the strength of the national defense is about right; 67% of Republicans, 64% of independents and 52% of Democrats agree.

58% overall say the U.S. has the No. 1 defense in the world; 75% of Republicans, 52% of independents and 46% of Democrats agree.

50% overall say U.S. defense spending is about right; 72% of Republicans, 42% of independents and 36% of Democrats agree.

41% overall say the U.S. is only one of several leading powers in the world; 25% of Republicans, 46% of independents and 53% of Democrats agree.

Source: A Gallup poll OF 1,028 U.S. adults conducted Feb. 3-16 and released Monday.

Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin

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Inside the Beltway: Gravitas: Mike Pence earns new respect from the media - The Washington TImes

The weakness of Donald Trumps response to the COVID-19 crisisthe weakness of Trumps characterwas captured in a response that Vice-President Mike Pence gave, on Thursday, to CNNs Alisyn Camerota. She noted that, within hours of Trumps address to the nation the previous night, the Administration had to issue clarifications: that the travel ban he had announced, which he said would apply to Europe except for the United Kingdom, cover a tremendous amount of trade and cargo, and have exemptions only for Americans who had undergone screening, would, in fact, not apply to cargo, cover only countries in the Schengen zone (a subset of European countries with limited border checks between them), and would also have exemptions for permanent residents and citizens immediate family members. Those are big clarifications. It was bad enough that Trumps actions were entirely inadequatehe didnt address problems with testing, for example. But it was stunning that he seemingly could not accurately explain his bad ideas. International financial markets began dropping as he spoke, and the inadequacy of his words and his Presidency became manifest. And so, Camerota asked Pence, Why the confusion?

I dont think there was confusion, Pence replied, blankly, loyally, absurdly. The President took another historic step, just like he did in January with China, to suspend all travel from Europe, Alisyn, for the next thirty days. Instead of explaining the Presidents confused remarks, Pence echoed them, adding to the muddle. Pence, it should be remembered, is not only the Vice-President but the nations dedicated coronavirus point manhis function is to cordinate and clarify and at least give the illusion of leadership. And yet it took another few sentences before he mentioned that there would be Americans coming homeso not a suspension of all travelafter being screened, followed by a reference to every returning American and legal resident, with a note that they would be asked to self-quarantine for fourteen days. But, a couple of minutes later, Pence again referred to suspending all travel for thirty days from Europe. Who coming from where is allowed or required to do what? The main thing to remember is that the President did something historic.

The incompetence and the sycophancy are connected. Pence delivers what Trump demands, even when Trump demands the pretense that COVID-19 will simply go away if people stop worrying about it. It wont. It is not just that Trump doesnt always have the very best people around him; he has too many people who seem to care only whether he is happy. Even people with great expertise spend too much time, at almost every public briefing, ritually noting his leadership. Such words are not confidence-inspiring. There have been reports that Pence at various points suggested that Trump take some practical actionsfor example, in managing the plight of a cruise shipand that Trump said no. Other officials have reportedly had similar experiences. But, as long as they do not publicly confront their boss or pressure him to take real action on a growing crisis, that only means so much. And Pence, for one, is not doing so; instead, he kept telling Camerota that what looked like haphazard moves were all part of the Presidents strategy, extolling him as a leader who took action. But someone very prominent in the Administration or the Republican leadership has to get angry, in a way that is demonstrative, dramatic, and even, for whoever it is, out of character.

Instead, Pence is not alone. He is behaving in a way that Republicans have come to regard as normal. They must engage in the increasingly farcical exercise of praise for Trump. Sometimes, as when they join him onstage at a rally, the main immediate damage may be to their self-respect. At others, as in the impeachment hearings, when Republican after Republican claimed that the President was an innocent victim of the deep state, the damage was to their duty to the Constitution. During a pandemic, the harm is not only to public health but to the countrys structure, as fissures in the health and social-welfare systems widen, exposing just how vulnerable many Americans arethe hundred thousand homeless children in New York Citys public schools, for exampleand a larger order breaks apart. (The damage may even be to their own health: Senators Lindsey Graham and Rick Scott are under self-quarantine, after mingling at a Mar-a-Lago event that included a Brazilian official who has now been confirmed as having COVID-19; Trump was also present but has so far neither been tested nor quarantined himself.) On Thursday, Senator Mitch McConnell, who has praised what he decided to call Trumps early, bold action on COVID-19, reportedly had to be pressured to delay a Senate recess until a COVID-19 relief bill was passed. And among Fox News commentators, as Dylan Byers notes, there is still outrage that some virus has the nerve to undermine Trump. Pence, speaking to Camerota, tried to pin the blame on Europe, which he said was the site of most new cases. What will he say when America wins that title?

One of the most mangled sections of Pences interview had to do with testing. He suggested that anyone who needed a test could get one just by going to a doctor, who would arrange oneor maybe that would happen soon, if not yet. When Camerota showed him figures suggesting that the number of tests completed was still just in the thousands, he said he thought that the information was wrong. But he refused to even estimate the right number. The mismanagement of testing, particularly as coronavirus was just reaching the United States, appears to have triggered a disaster. It remains shockingly hard for people to get testedtest kits and the chemical reagents needed for them are a scarce resourceeven when they have symptoms and known contact with COVID-19 patients. According to the COVID Tracking Project, in which The Atlantic is a partner, the tally of tests completed was nearing sixteen thousand five hundred on Friday; South Korea has conducted more than ten times as many. It is a failing. Lets admit it, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, of the U.S.s testing system, at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee. Trump will never admit it.

The testing situation is such a shambles that even some Republicans have begun to acknowledge it. Senator Lamar Alexander called it a serious deficiency, according to Politico, and Senator James Lankford said that the idea that people could simply go and get testedwhich Trump has pushedwas just wrong. Senator Mitt Romney (who might actually be good at managing this sort of thing) said that the situation is frustrating. The question is whether that consciousness of failure will lead to a breaking point in the Republicans system of obedience to Trump. This is not a matter of using the coronavirus crisis to bring him down; its a question of the Presidents party really pushing him to do what he can to stop the virus from bringing the country down. And if he wont, they can start voting with Democrats in Congress, and give support to governors and other local officialsand, most fundamentally, they can be honest with the public. Perhaps Republicans could even nominate someone else at the convention this August (if, given the fears of COVID-19, its still held). That seems far-fetched, but so, a month ago, did trading being halted on the New York Stock Exchange, campuses closing, Broadway shutting down, major-league seasons getting suspended, and parts of the city of New Rochelle being cordoned off. Unimaginable scenes at overwhelmed hospitals may be ahead.

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Mike Pence and the Farce of Trusting Donald Trump on the Coronavirus - The New Yorker

Vice President Mike Pence ducked a question Thursday about how many coronavirus tests have been carried out after the nations top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, said the dearth of testing remains a failing of the nations battle against COVID-19.

Pence, whom Trump put in charge of the White House task force on the virus, was pressed on CNN about why the number of tests reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) has decreased since March 5even as cases rise amid urgent calls for more testing.

Pence speculated that the CDC was missing tests being carried out by states. Asked, then, what the total was, he responded: Well, I would leave that to the experts. (Check out the video above.) Testing is critical to isolate those with coronavirus symptoms, even mild ones, in particular to protect more vulnerable people who could die of COVID-19.

Pence conceded earlier on CBS that the Trump administration is still working to cut red tape holding up testing.We are going to continue to work in every way to clear out, as the president said, any red tape, any barriers to testing that might have existed at the Food and Drug Administration, he said on CBS This Morning.

Pence had vowed earlier this month that testing would be ramped up but admitted last week that it continued to be outstripped by demand.

The COVID-19 Tracking Project by The Atlanticand a data team, which combines most state tests, estimates 10,000 people have been tested in the U.S. South Korea has tested more than 230,000 people. (Two specimens per person are usually tested, according to The Atlantic, which is why test numbers are larger than the number of people tested.)

Dr. Matt McCarthy, an infectious disease expert and physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, early this month blasted the lack of available tests as a national scandal and complained that he had to plead for tests for sick people in the emergency room. The testing issue should have been addressed immediately in December as news of the coronavirus first emerged, McCarthy said, adding that the capacity for testing is increasing but that critical hurdles still remainto obtaining the tests.

Initial tests developed by the CDC were flawed and worked in only a handful of labs. In addition, they were initially available only for people returning from China or for those who had contact with an individual known to be ill with coronavirus.

President Donald Trump insisted at an appearance a week ago at the CDC that anyone that needs a test for coronavirus could get it. On Thursday, he said frankly, the testing has been very smooth.

Trump also claimed that everyone coming into the U.S. is tested. International travelers are observed for symptoms; their temperature may be taken with a non-contact thermometer, but theyre not tested for the virus.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday that the shortage of testing is a failing.

The system is not really geared to what we need right now, he said. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it, were not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes.

Check out his testimony here:

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Mike Pence Won't Say How Many Coronavirus Tests Have Been Conducted - HuffPost

"The View" addressed who they think Vice President Joe Biden should pick if he ultimately becomes the official Democratic nominee. According to the co-hosts, it must be a woman.

But if Biden picks a woman, Meghan McCain thinks Trump will go tit-for-tat andfire Vice President Mike Pence.

"I still think, though, if he chooses a woman, Trump is going to kick Pence out and put in Nikki Haley," she said. "Because I think they're going to go toe-for-toe. Like you want to identity politics me, I'll identity politics you. I think they're gangster."

Co-host Joy Behar said that the president's luck is changing right now and given Pence's more-stable leadership on coronavirus, Trump might falter. Others think that Trump has named Pence as the head of the coronavirus task force because if it goes awry he can throw the vice president under the bus.

"I don't know if the party would like that, to take Pence out," said Behar.

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"I think they would. They need the win," McCain replied.

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Meghan McCain predicts that President Trump will boot Mike Pence off the GOP ticket on "The View" - Salon

According to reports, Mike Pence has been meeting in secret with right wing media personalities to get their opinions on how the White House should spin the crisis. This is further proof that the White House does not care about the safety of the American people, they only care about their image and their chances of reelection. Ring of Fires Farron Cousins explains whats happening.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

According to a new report from the Daily Beast, Mike Pence has been meeting with right wing personalities, media hosts and influencers on social media to try to help massage the message a little bit about the Trump administrations response to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, heres the weird thing about this. This wasnt an afterthought. This wasnt, okay, well now its been a couple of weeks. We need to go out there and start meeting with these people. Get the word out. Mike Pence started meeting with these folks the day after Donald Trump appointed him to head up the coronavirus task force. The very first thing he did was go out there and reach out to right wing media folks and right wing social media folks and say, how can we spin this? How can we make us look better? Thats whats happening here. Now, according to the Daily Beast, this actually began even before that at CPAC.

There was a little meeting that they all attended where they talked about how to massage the message, how to kind of whitewash things, how to make things really look so much better than they are. And then again, once Pence was appointed, first thing he does, he goes out, he holds the meeting, a meeting the next day. Then the next day holds another meeting with these folks and essentially they exchange talking points, explained to the White House how they have a massive PR crisis on their hands and how they could fix it. Some of the folks who have attended these meetings, according to Daily Beast, Fox news fixture and prolific MAGA tweeter, Dan Bongino, former Trump advisor and current war room 2020 podcast host, Jason Miller, Newsmax TV host and Trumps former press secretary Sean Spicer, former White House official and Sinclair must run commentator Boris Epshteyn, Sinclair anchor and ex Fox news host Eric Bolling and former representative Jack Kingston from Georgia who is also a Trump surrogate.

They also met with multiple MAGA folks who have massive Twitter followings or massive YouTube followings trying to get them to go out there and spread the good word about how awesome the Trump administration is doing in handling this crisis. And folks, if you had any doubt that the Trump administration doesnt care about human beings, this should have gone ahead and confirmed that no, they dont care about human beings. All they care about is the PR, the public relations side of this. They dont want people to lose faith in Donald Trump. Even though people left and right are losing faith in Donald Trump. They dont trust him. They dont think hes doing a good job with this. They dont think he can do a good job with this and thats what the White House wants to fix. They dont want to necessarily stop the spread of the pandemic. That, that doesnt seem to be the big concern there.

Its just, wow, I dont want people to think Im a moron and thats what theyre concerned about. Thats what theyre actually out there working on. In fact, Mike Pences chief of staff, Marc Short, actually defended these meetings. So he admitted that they happened. This is not, you know, a conspiracy. Theres, these meetings are actually happening. But anyway, Short goes out there and tells the media outlets that, well, you know, were doing this because we just want to get the word out to as many people as possible, as fast as possible. You know, its not, its not white washing. Its not propaganda. Its just because like if we need them to tweet something out, theyre going to go out and do it. So that helps get information out to the public. Thats a lie. That is an absolute lie because let me tell you how a lot of these right wing media personalities operate on Twitter, and I know this from experience because if you ever say one thing critical about them, or even if youve never spoken to them at all or tweeted about them or mentioned them on Twitter, theyre going to block you.

I know that because Im blocked by Dan Bongino and I had never, before I was blocked, ever said a word about Dan Bongino on social media, in a video here, or even in my private life, had never uttered his name only to find out on a block. So how does that work if Dan Bongino is part of the rapid response team yet I cant see what he has to say? So Im just screwed because hes got a grudge against me for some reason? Same thing with all of these other little weasels out there on social media, but this isnt about spreading important messages about testing centers. This is about white washing the Trump administrations ridiculous response to this pandemic. Its about making people think that theyre not as inept as they actually are and luckily, since this has been going on since February, the public isnt buying it. They know that weve got two morons, Beavis and Butthead in Pence and Trump running this whole thing. Theyre not happy about it and they know its not working. So no amount of right-wing propaganda at this point, as they watch this virus spread, is going to convince them otherwise.

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Mike Pence Secretly Meeting With Right-Wing Media Personalities To Craft Pandemic Talking Points - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network