President Donald Trump said everyone at his Monday press conference has something in their past that can used against them – except for his Vice President Mike Pence.
And, he said, it’d be ‘the greatest shock of all time’ if something did emerge against his squeaky clean veep.
‘There are bad reports on everybody in here. Most of the people sitting down – except for Mike Pence by the way. And if we find one on him,’ Trump said, waving his hands in disbelief, ‘then that’s going to be the greatest shock of all time.’
President Donald Trump said everyone at his Monday press conference has something in their past that can used against them – except for his Vice President Mike Pence
Pence has a squeaky clean reputation
The crowd laughed as Pence sat in the front row of the presser, shaking his head and chuckling.
While the president has a colorful past, Pence enjoys a squeaky clean reputation.
Trump made his crack while he was defending his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is being charged with sexual assault stemming back from his high school days.
Christine Blasey Ford charges that Kavanaugh, when drinking, pinned her to a bed during a high school party in the 1980s, tried to rip her clothes off and covered her mouth when she screamed.
Kavanaugh denies the allegation.
Trump’s own past is full of allegations – such as affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, both of which Trump has denied.
The president is on his third marriage and his first to Ivana Trump ended in a divorce when he was caught having an affair with Marla Maples, who became his second wife.
Pence, in contrast, has a such a clean-cut image it’s almost too the point he has been mocked about it, particularly after a2017 Washington Post profile of his wife Karen revealed he never dines alone with another woman and has his wife with him at any events where alcohol is being served.
The vice president said he became an evangelical in college, telling The New York Times: ‘I gave my life to Jesus Christ and that’s changed everything.’
Karen Pence is also deeply religious.
The two met when he was in law school at Indiana University. After they started dating, she bought a gold cross with the word ‘Yes’ engraved on it, and kept it in her purse until he proposed.
Pence, while governor of Indiana, signed one of the nation’s strictest anti-abortion bills, a piece of legislation that would prohibiting a woman from aborting a fetus because it has a disability like Down syndrome.
Trump and Pence together at the Republican National Convention in 2016
Vice President Mike Pence with his wife Karen at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York last week – the two often travel together
Donald Trump, his son Barron Trump, Mike Pence, Karen Pence and their daughter Charlotte Pence, with Ivanka Trump looking on at the 2016 Republican National Convention
The law was ultimately ruled unconstitutional.
Pence also has been noted for his deferential stance to Trump. During the presidential campaign, when the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tape came to light featuring Trump making lewd comments about women, Pence stood by him saying: ‘I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them.’
In October, Pence supported Trump’s criticism of NFL players who knelt during the playing of the National Anthem by walking out of a game between the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers after members of the 49ers knelt during ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’