“I value loyalty above everything else,” President Donald Trump once said. “More than brains, more than drive and more than energy.”

That statement should be music to Mike Pence’s ears. No one has been more loyal to the president -- that is, more on message with him, more willing to back him up and praise him -- than his vice president.

And yet rumors have picked up steam in Republican political circles that Trump wants to replace the former Indiana governor on the 2020 ticket.

The supposed reason: facing persistent low approval ratings (just 36 percent of Americans give Trump a thumb’s up in a newly released Associated Press poll), the president believes he might need a bigger electoral boost from his running mate. So he wants popular former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley to take over the No. 2 slot.

To be clear, this is the rumor. Publicly, President Trump has only backed Pence, saying the vice president is “100%” his guy in 2020.

Still, the Washington rumor mill apparently churns on. So much so that Haley sent out a tweet Wednesday addressing the insider chatter.

"Enough of the false rumors,” she wrote. "Vice President Pence has been a dear friend of mine for years. He has been a loyal and trustworthy VP to the President. He has my complete support."

Long-time cable-TV pundit and former GOP insider Bill Kristol, who heads up the anti-Trump organization Republicans for the Rule of Law, immediately made clear he isn’t buying what Haley is selling.

“Well, that’s one way to dispel ‘false rumors’ -- broadcast them to your 450,000 followers, 98% of whom had never heard the rumors,” Kristol wrote on Twitter. “And the rumor isn’t that Haley dislikes Pence, which is what she addresses. It’s that Trump would like to dump Pence. Which Haley can’t really address.”

Well, that’s one way to dispel “false rumors”—broadcast them to your 450,000 followers, 98% of whom had never heard the rumors. And the rumor isn’t that Haley dislikes Pence, which is what she addresses. It’s that Trump would like to dump Pence. Which Haley can’t really address. https://t.co/VDzaz56lDn — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 21, 2019

Fox News pointed out that “[i]t wasn’t immediately clear what caused Haley to speak out” and noted that the former South Carolina governor recently criticized Trump’s mocking of Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings -- not an example of the kind of loyalty the president expects from a vice president.

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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