Trump continues his sputtering campaign from under the bus

Tim Kaine needled both The Donald and his running mate:

[Kaine] took a victory lap Thursday morning on CNN’s “New Day” as he laid another trap for Donald Trump.

Several reports have suggested that Trump wasn’t happy that his running mate, Mike Pence, declined to defend some of his most controversial statements, which Kaine repeatedly recited onto the record during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate.
“There’s been a lot of stories to suggest that Donald Trump’s reaction to the debate was one of anger — why won’t my own running mate defend me?” Kaine said. “I think that’s going to work on his head a little bit as he goes into prepping for the really important debate on Sunday.”

Kaine reminded viewers that Trump had a poor performance last week, in the first presidential debate, and then he watched Pence back away from his record instead of defending it.

“He saw a debate two nights ago where his own running mate sort of threw him under the bus,” Kaine said. “So yeah, I’m sure the Trump campaign is not happy with that debate, and that puts some extra pressure on him getting ready for Sunday.” …

“His own running mate threw him under the bus — that’s going to work on his head.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Pence himself pretty much did the same thing:

Pence denied knowing Donald Trump very well in a painful CNN interview as he stood in front of the actual bus that he figuratively threw his running mate beneath.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo grilled the Republican vice presidential candidate, who for the second time this week refused to defend Trump’s campaign promise to ban Muslims from the United States. …

Pence said [Trump’s] immigration policy was intended to “put the security of the American people first,” but Cuomo refused to let him wriggle off the hook.

“But, governor, that is a finessed position,” Cuomo said. “We both know that where he started was saying that there is a problem with Islam, that Muslims should be kept out of the country. You condemned those comments, and you did so strongly as the governor of Indiana when you were backing Ted Cruz. You said we can’t say that when he said what he said about Judge (Gonzalo) Curiel, not making it about the case but about his ethnicity, you condemned those comments. Why do you not condemn them now?”

Pence denied that those widely reported statements were Trump’s actual positions, and he chuckled as he denied even knowing the GOP nominee well enough to comment.

“Look, you’ve known him for a long time, Chris — I haven’t known him that long at all,” Pence said.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.