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What's the future of the U.S. military? Apparently space. Take a look at our favorite jokes, then vote for yours at usatoday.com/opinion. Eileen Rivers, USA TODAY Opinion

Alec Baldwin, left, as President Donald Trump and Beck Bennett as Vice President Mike Pence in a scene from "Saturday Night Live."(Photo: Will Heath/NBC)

WASHINGTON You might have laughed at a satirical headline in The Onion about Vice President Mike Pence asking a waiter to remove a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's syrup from the table until his wife arrives.

Or you could have seen the "Saturday Night Live"Christmas skit in which the stiff-armed, buttoned-down vice president says he doesnt like Deck the Halls, because the carol mentions gay apparel, which Im pretty sure is a mesh tank top.

Or you could have heard Stephen Colberts recent riff on Pences political strategy of being so boring people forget you exist.

He is a manila envelope taped to a beige wall, Colbert said. He could go back to his old job. I think it was off-white paint swatch. Sun-faded department store mannequin. Ghost of a plain yogurt.

Jokes about Pence, and impersonations of him on shows like "SNL,"have consistent themes.

Of the 80 jokes targeting Pence on the late-night talk shows in 2017, most were about his alleged dull personality, prudishnessand homophobia, according to a database compiled by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University.

He is really portrayed as a Christian fundamentalist, very homophobic, the whitest person in politics, said Edo Steinberg, a doctoral candidate at Indiana Universitys Media School who studies political satire. Hes a very sinister character.

The effect of political humor on a politicians reputation varies, according to experts. But its more likely to have an impact on the image of someone like Pence, who did not have a national profile before becoming vice president, than on President Donald Trump.

Trump jokes will not be changing anybodys opinion about Trump, said Jody Baumgartner, a political scientist at East Carolina University who has written about political humor. Everybody already has an opinion about Trump.

And Trump is such a target for comedians, that Pence and others in his orbit often get less attention.Jokes about Pence have made up a slightly smaller share of George Mason Universitys database of jokes about politicians than those of other recent vice presidents.

"Trump isn't just the elephant in the room. He's the whole room," said Robert Lichter, communications professor at George Mason University and director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. Pence has embraced the traditional role of vice president:Dont call attention to yourself."

That backfired, however, when Pence sat silently in the Oval Office as Trump sparred this monthwith House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer over funding a border wall and preventing a government shutdown.

After people made jokes on the internet all day comparing Pence to an "elf on the shelf" and "the worst member of this improv team," late-night hosts Colbert, Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Kimmel all joined in the fun.

I guess when Schumer said shutdown, Pence took him literally, Meyers joked.

Some jokes about Pence have gotten noticed for being controversial.

After former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newmansaid in Februarythat Pence thinks Jesus tells him to say things, comedian Joy Behar quipped that he is mentally ill.

"Its one thing to talk to Jesus. Its another thing when Jesus talks to you," Behar said on The View in February."That's called mental illness, if I'm not correct. Hearing voices."

Behar later apologized, saying: I was raised to respect everyone's religious faith, and I fell short of that.

Late-night comics tend to focus on politicians personalities in making jokes. And the religiosity of Pence who introduces himself as aChristian, a conservative and a Republican in that order is one of the things many people tend to know about him. (Another is that he follows a practice common among some evangelicals to avoid beingalone with a woman other than his wife.)

But other occupants of the White House have been openly religious without that becoming significant fodder for satire.

George W. Bush, for example, he was also a Christian president, but he had other traits that people knew about that they could joke about, Steinberg said.

Also, former Vice President Joe Biden, like Pence, doesnt drink alcohol. But while "SNLs" Mike Pence worries that hes slurring his speech after imbibing ginger ale, The Onion dubbed Biden Diamond Joe and celebrated his wild-ass magic carpet ride.

Chad Nackers, the satirical publications editor-in-chief, said the Biden character who tearfully took down a black-light poster of a topless Barbarian chick from his office wall in one article and washed a Trans Am, shirtless, in the White House driveway in another went against Bidens nature, which was serious, despite his Cheshire cat grin.

But I feel like, during this time when the truth has lost some of its meaning, to be authentic, you cant treat Pence like hes off womanizing, Nackers said. Instead, we have to play into what he does to stop himself from doing those types of things.

Hence the Mrs. Butterworth's headline. Or this one: Pence Passing Time During Trumps Speech By Mentally Baptizing Senators.

But when The Onion reported that Trump accidentally fired off a Boring Mike Pence tweet during the vice presidents speech, that joke apparently hit too close to home.

"People thought that was real for some reason,"Nackers said. People were like, 'Why is he attacking Pence?

Pences supporters might also wonder the same thing about late-night comedians. Political humor has become more critical and negative over the last few decades, according to Lichter.

The jokes could be more biting because of who is making them, Baumgartner said.

If you look across the late-night talk show landscape, he said, you can see that we have openly activist, progressive, left-leaning hosts who are dominating the landscape and getting the ratings to show it.

When Pences wife and daughter published "A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo," a childrens book that describes the vice presidents job as seen through the eyes of his pet rabbit, John Oliver put out an alternative version that was meant as a criticism of the vice presidents record on gay rights. The parody book rose higher on best-seller lists than the original.

Also, the parody of the Trump administration by "SNL"has gone too far, argues Bill Horner, a politicalscience professor at the University of Missouri who co-authored a book about Saturday Night Live and the 1976 presidential election.

Theyve staked out a much more clearly negative position on this president than theyve done almost through their whole history, he said.

Horner calls "SNL" actor Beck Bennetts portrayal of Pence a pretty good take, with Bennett holding himself stiffly as he gamely tries to reinterpret controversialor falsethings Trump has just said.

Beck Bennett is Vice President Mike Pence and Aidy Bryant is Karen Pence on 'SNL.'(Photo: Will Heath, NBC)

But Horner seesthe jokes on "SNL" and other platforms that paint Pence as being prudish, homophobic and super-religious as revealing an underlying fear from the writers of what would happen if Trump left office and Pence replaced him.

I think the humor seems to really reflect that, Horner said.

Pences own sense of humor is a mystery to many. Despite the fact that Pence has enjoyed doing impressions since childhood so much so that a friends mom thought he might become a comedian he said when running for governor of Indiana in 2012 that one of the biggest misconceptions about him is that he doesnt have a sense of humor.

Hes deadpanned. Which is potentially good. But hes deadpanned stern, not deadpanned funny, said Republican speechwriter Landon Parvin. Rectitude is not good for comedy unless you are making fun of the rectitude, then it's gold. It's like knocking off the hat of the mayor with a snowball.

If he were asked to help make Pence funny, Parvin said he would urge Pence to surprise the people who think they know him.

Show me a little more sinner and a little less saint, Parvin said. I think that would relax his persona some.

There have been glimpses of that.

When Pence was ridiculed on social media over a photo that showed him touching NASA equipment next to a do not touch sign, Pence tweeted: Sorry NASA@MarcoRubio dared me to do it.

Pence has also made self-deprecating remarks about his image. Speaking at the 2017 Gridiron Club dinner, Pence joked that it was good all the major networks were represented because I only have to say the same thing once.

He quipped that the news that he uses an AOL email account would help his image because now America knows Im not stuck in the 50s. Im just stuck in the 90s.

And he gave a nod to the lighthearted tradition of political comedy.

Humor, Pence said, is a great unifier.

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Mike Pence: 'Whitest person in politics' gets a lot of ribbing

12/12/2018 3:09 PM PST

EXCLUSIVE

President Trumpinsists he's not feeling any impeachment heat, but his Veep Mike Penceis in prepare-for-the-worst mode ... according to Congressman Gregory Meeks.

We got the distinguished gentleman from NY on Capitol Hill and he tells us he sees similarities between Mueller's Trump investigation and the one that eventually forcedRichard M. Nixonout of office.

Meeks believesRobert Mueller's court filing last week was devastating for POTUS because it revealed Cohen told the special counsel's office it was Trump who directed payments to 2 women -- Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.Meeks says Pence is paying close attention as the info trickles out.

Case in point, during Tuesday's fireworks at the White House, Trump railed on Rep.Schumer and Rep.Pelosi... while Pence sat silently.

Bottom line -- Rep. Meeks thinks Pence will have very little to say about his pal, the Prez, in coming weeks because he's busy reading writing on walls. And, no ... he ain't talking graffiti.

The rest is here:
Mike Pence Distancing Himself from Trump and ... - tmz.com

But the way to overcome that problem, Elsesser said, is not to monastically order room service every night of your business trip. Instead, its to normalize men and women interacting professionally, in a non-sexual way. If you always saw men and women meeting together for dinner, she told me, people wouldnt see it as suspicious.

In the midst of so much policy news, Pences gender-segregated meals might seem like a minor issue. And since that tidbit was from 2002, its not clear if he still hews to that standard. He set a standard to ensure a strong marriage when he first came to D.C. as a congressman, said Pence spokesman Marc Lotter in an email. Clearly that worked. Lotter pointed out that several members of Pences senior staff, including his deputy chief of staff, Jen Pavlik, and director of public engagement, Sarah Makin, are women.

But this quirk of Pences highlights broader questions over where, exactly, womens voicesother than Ivanka Trumpsbelong in the Trump administration. Women I met while covering the Womens March told me they feared, given Trumps rhetoric, that their views and concerns will be pushed to the sidelines during his tenure. And indeed, Trump has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood and has already cut global family-planning funds.

As Jill Filipovic recently pointed out in The New York Times, President Trumps cabinet is the most white and male in 35 years. Among his top staff members, men outnumber women two to one. When Pence tweeted a photo of a meeting with the House Freedom Caucus on health care recently, what made waves was not the attempts at political deal-making but the fact that room, which was weighing the elimination of mothers health benefits, was so crammed with Y-chromosomes.

A cheesy bon-mot popular among lobbyists goes, in Washington, if youre not at the table, youre on the menu. In other words, if you dont schmooze, you loseand so does the agenda youre pushing. If Pence literally wont sit at the table with women, where does that leave womens issues?

Theres really no need for Penceor any other manto wall women off professionally. As my colleague Emma Green points out, the Pence rule (which is actually the Billy Graham rule) is meant to preserve a marriage at all costs. But in the age of sexting, avoiding co-ed meetings seems aimed more at managing ones reputation than at preventing a sex scandal. In 2017, if you really wanted to cheat on your wife, you wouldnt take your staffer to the Palm. Youd hit her up on Snapchat.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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How Mike Pence's Refusing to Eat With Women Hurts Women - The ...

It looks as if The Trump Showwill take some interesting turns in thenew season, which begins Jan. 3. The teaser we saw on Tuesday was a doozy. Minority Leader and soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went up to the White House to meet with the president about the looming government shutdown and all hell broke loose before the meeting even started. When the fur starts flying at the photo-op, you know that things are going to get crazy.

Trump did his normal thing: Lying, exaggerating, threatening, bragging, complaining. But instead of the usual GOP sycophants clapping like a bunch of trained seals, this time hegotpushback. He's not used to that and it didn't go well for him.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Trump stomped off and threw a folder full of papers around the room after the meeting, which is understandable. He had no idea what had just happened to him and he was frustrated.

It's hard to believe it was this easy but Pelosi got him rattled by confronting him and then Schumer goaded him into yelling "I'll proudly shut down the government if I don't get what I want!" which, if it happens, is going to be an albatross around his neck. The Republicans are reportedly none too pleased that the greatest negotiator the world has ever known was so easily backed into a corner, leaving them with little room to maneuver on the budget, especially sincethe latest pollingshows that a large majority of American don't want a shutdown over the wall. Even 30 percent of Republicans are against it.

One person who had not one word to say about all this was Vice President Mike Pence, who sat frozen in a chair like a Madame Tussaud'swax figure, not moving or changing expression the entire time. His behavior was so strange it went viral almost immediately:

It's actually quite understandable that Pence was, well, a bit pensive. The meeting was a train wreck, and it's plausible that he had recently been on the receiving end of Trump's wild temper and was just happy not to be involved. After all, Trump had just suffered a major humiliation when Pence's chief of staff, Nick Ayers, pulled out of an apparent agreement to move up and replace Trump's departing chief of staff, JohnKelly. Trump had foolishly announced Kelly's departure as one of his distraction ploys during last week's rollout of bad legal news andno doubt held Pence somewhat responsible for the humiliation when his boy backed out. That's just how he rolls.

Nobody really knows why Ayers turned down the job. He's been working for Pence from the beginning of the term and his main characteristic seems to be relentless ambition. But he did, and now Trump is scrambling to find someone. As of Tuesday afternoon, the White House had to backtrack and say that Kelly would stay on until after the first of the year.

The Ayers saga has been going on for some time. Apparentlyhe was pushed hard by Ivanka and Jared Kushner, largely because of their antipathy for Kelly. There werestrange little kabuki dancesstaged for the press, denying that there was any unpleasantness, but nobody was fooled. One of the more recent palace-intrigue stories might have also contributed to Ayers' departure and Pence's odd behavior.Gabriel Shermanat Vanity Fair reported recently that there was some talk that for all of his ostentatious bootlicking, Pence wasn't really bringing anything to the party:

[Earlier this month] Trump hosted a 2020 strategy meeting with a group of advisers. Among the topics discussed was whether Mike Pence should remain on the ticket, given the hurricane-force political headwinds Trump will face, as demonstrated by the midterms, a source briefed on the session told me. Theyre beginning to think about whether Mike Pence should be running again, the source said, adding that the advisers presented Trump with new polling that shows Pence doesnt expand Trumps coalition. He doesnt detract from it, but he doesnt add anything either, the source said. Last month,The New York Times reportedthat Trump had been privately asking advisers if Pence could be trusted, and that outside advisers have been pushingNikki Haleyto replace Pence.

It's hard to know if Ayers' abrupt departure from the White House might have anything to do with those musings, but you can bet that Pence has heard about it.

That polling is correct, by the way. Pence's place on the ticket was always predicated on the need for Trump to reel in folks on the religious right who might be put off by his libertine ways. As it turns out, they love him just the way he is.

CNN's Ron Brownstein looked atsome previously unpublished results from the 2018 exit polls and they show something startling. Republicans actually ran poorly among white working-class women who are not evangelicals. Nearly three-fifths of those women voted for the Democrats, more than double the share of evangelical women. Even white working-class non-evangelical men, who did give Republicans a majority, still voted twice as often for Democrats as did white male working-class evangelicals. Most college-educated evangelicals voted for Republicans too. They are consistently Trump's most ardent followers.

In fact, just last weeka group gatheredat the Trump Hotel in Washington to pray for him:

[L]ast Friday afternoon (Dec. 7), one of the hotels many glimmering ballrooms was transformed into a sanctuary, where dozens of worshippers held their hands aloft and spoke in tongues as Jon Hamill, co-founder of Washington, D.C.-based Lamplighter Ministries, led the group in prayer. Hamill whom supporters describe as a prophet closed his eyes tightly and shouted above the chattering: In Jesus name, we declare the Deep State will not prevail!

The Trump advisers who brought him his polling no doubt understand that these people are in the bag for 2020. But if they want to win they have to figure out a way to bring back some of those non-evangelical women who are abandoning the Republican Party in droves. In that respect, maybe putting Nikki Haley on the ticket makes some sense.

If people are talking about this to the press you can be sure Pence knows about this scuttlebutt too. So does Pence's fair-haired boy, Nick Ayers, which may be informing his decision to spend more time with his money. That faraway look in the veep's eye may be the look of someone who's trying to come to terms with the fact that he's just another in a long line of Donald Trump's castoffs who have been used, abused and left with nothing.

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Whats behind Mike Pences stony visage? Trump may plan to ...

Vice President Mike Pence has become a meme again, this time after meeting with President Donald Trump and Pence and Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office to discuss Trumps promise of a wall along the southern border of the U.S. on Tuesday.

In the presence of reporters at the televised meeting, the President and the Democratic leaders were at time combative as they argued their viewpoints. As for Vice President Mike Pences part, through most of the meeting, he did not take part in some of the spirited discussion as it went on.

This was not lost on late night hosts who couldnt resist the chance to zoom all the way in on Pence on Tuesday night.

The best part of the meeting was Mike Pence just sitting there quietly patiently waiting to be President, not saying a word, Jimmy Kimmel cracked on Live! before debuting a doctored clip that reimagined the meeting as The Real White House Wives of D.C.

On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert imagined Pences inner monologue during the meeting with a sketch that kicked off Tuesdays episode. I wonder if I sit real still if people will even notice Im here. Im a manila envelope taped to a beige wall, no one can see me, Stephen Colbert cracked.

On Late Night With Seth Meyers, Meyers had one question. Also, is Mike Pence doing? I guess when Schumer said shutdown, Mike Pence took it literally.

But before late night riffed on the footage, people on Twitter had already had a field day zeroing in on Pences demeanor during that day, with users comparing his seemingly motionless position to Weekend at Bernies and Elf on the Shelf and all sorts of other imaginary scenarios.

And some online felt bonded to him.

Contact us at editors@time.com.

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Mike Pence Gets Spoofed by Late Night for His Oval Office ...