INDIANAPOLIS – In his first remarks Saturday upon joining the 2016 ticket, Mike Pence hit the obligatory anti-Hillary Clinton notes, questioning her plans to expand Obamacare, shut down coal mining and declaring that she “should never be president of the United States of America.”

But it was Donald Trump who made the strongest and sharpest case against the presumptive Democratic nominee, and he was the only one on the New York stage to use the “Crooked Hillary” mantra.


It was no coincidence. As their new partnership lifts off, there are signs pointing to the rare ticket where the presidential nominee plays the attack dog role.

When it comes to the Clintons, Mike Pence has often been a reluctant aggressor. He’s heaped praise on Hillary Clinton in the past, opining on national television about the historic nature of her White House run and referring to her as “one of the most admired, not only women, but public people in America.”

Back during his days as an Indiana conservative talk radio host in the 1990s, Pence typically let his callers and guests carry the water on alleged improprieties surrounding President Bill Clinton and the first lady. Despite a seemingly endless supply of material from the White House, he was no Democrat-hating shock jock.

Pence opposed Clinton’s policies. But his was a pretty tame act by talk radio standards, one that hewed close to the no-negative style that he has embraced in his career after experiencing first-hand the downsides of negative campaigning in America’s heartland.

One early example came in May 1997 during an episode of Pence’s daily radio program that was syndicated across much of Indiana. According to rare video footage of one episode of ‘The Mike Pence Show,’ obtained by POLITICO, the far-off-in-the-future GOP vice presidential pick engaged on the issue of Bill Clinton’s infidelity — but only after his listeners brought it up.

The context: Pence was talking on his show about a widely publicized case of adultery involving the first female B-52 pilot in the U.S. Air Force. The woman, Kelly Flinn, was all over the news for having an affair with the husband of an enlisted subordinate. Pence opened this show by talking about how he was struggling with the legal and career ramifications for Flinn, as well as the public remarks of political leaders who he said were essentially arguing “that adultery is really an antiquated sin if you will, it’s no longer in vogue in America.”

Enter Clinton, and a series of callers who wanted Pence to weigh in about why the president — as the official head of the U.S. military — wasn’t being prosecuted too since he was facing allegations of marital infidelities.

“You know I haven't been able to get through a show yet this week without the commander in chief coming up and I think that says a lot, don't you? And I haven't brought him up once,” Pence said, laughing and giving out a deep sigh. “You know. I haven't. I've steered clear of that. It's just out there isn't it? Paula Jones. And Gennifer Flowers and the whole bit.”

A few minutes later, after another caller raised a question about whether Hillary Clinton had specifically played a role in the government’s handling of the Flinn affair, Pence’s remarks dripped with sarcasm but steered far from the tear-the-bark-off criticisms lodged by other hosts at the time: “We haven't heard a whisper out of the White House on this case. I mean not a whisper. And the president comments on everything. Doesn't he? I mean you could, you could, have him announce corn prices are down, the president would have a press conference it seems like.”

One big reason Pence would often find himself talking about Clinton: his audience in large parts of the state outside Indianapolis was listening to his three-hour bloc because it came right before Rush Limbaugh’s show.

On many occasions before his political career really began with his 2000 election to Congress, Pence treated the Clintons with kid gloves. Sometimes he even agreed with them.

In an April 1995 interview with local Indiana political reporter Brian Howey, Pence was asked to weigh in about a remark from President Clinton — made soon after the recent Oklahoma City bombing — that lawlessness was being inspired by inflammatory rhetoric, including the “promoters of paranoia” on talk radio.

“I think President Clinton is right in that vein,” Pence replied, according to the interview published in the Howey Political Report. “We have rights in America. And in tandem with those rights, we have responsibility. Whatever type of journalist we are, whether it be in the entertainment business or as professional journalists, we always have the consequences of the way that we present fact and information.”

As Pence moved from the broadcast booth to Congress, his policy views became more defined and also very different from the Clintons, especially on issues like energy, health care and government spending. But he didn’t reflexively reject Clinton’s positions: He’s remained a champion of the North American Free Trade Agreement that was signed by President Clinton and which his new running mate Trump on Saturday called “the worst economic deal in the history of our country.”

Pence has also heralded moments when he’s found common ground with Hillary Clinton on an issue, such as a 2008 press release his House office released after both Clinton and then Sen.-Barack Obama signed on as cosponsors to a companion bill that would give journalists protection from being forced to give testimony about their sources.

He’s been careful not to personalize his criticism, instead tending to keep his criticism narrowly tailored to ideological differences. Speaking of Hillary Clinton as a potential presidential candidate, Pence told CNN’s Crossfire in April 2005 that the GOP would “love to take [Clinton] on…because I believe she represents that strong center left liberal tradition, big government tradition in the Democratic Party.”

In the same interview, he lauded Clinton for her political skills. “I think Hillary Clinton is an enormously appealing individual, I would say coast-to-coast for my district out in the middle of heartland America, this, this is one of the most admired, not only women, but public people in America,” he said.

Later on in the show, CNN host James Carville pressed Pence on how he thought Hillary Clinton as president would handle government spending compared with President George W. Bush, who had spent $2.2 trillion during his first four-plus years in office. In his reply, Pence said he’d prefer a GOP hold on the White House and Congress but allowed that a Democratic president wouldn’t be the worst thing for fiscal stability either.

“Well, look, this president came in, as you know, James, as well as I do, national emergency in 9/11, the recession, the advent of the war on terrorism and two-theater war,” Pence said. “We’ve had our challenges, but Hillary Clinton, with stronger majorities for the Republican party in the House and Senate, might be able to do a little better.”

Pence’s praise for Hillary Clinton continued in late August 2008 during a news conference in the Capitol that coincided with John McCain tapping Sarah Palin as his running mate.

“I do believe that Sen. Hillary Clinton should be commended for having run a campaign that demonstrated the openness of the process and the ability of a woman to come — 18 million votes — to come that close, within a whisker of being a major party nominee. I give her credit for that,” Pence told reporters.

Then, drawing comparisons between Clinton and Palin, he added, “I really do believe there are millions of women around the country who, whatever their views on a variety of issues, will look at Hillary Clinton and look at Sarah Palin in very much a similar light -- two strong and accomplished women, who have been successful in their own right, presenting their own ideological view in their careers.”

As Pence takes on Palin’s role in the 2016 campaign, it’s unlikely he’ll be repeating many of the positive things he’s said about the Clintons before over the years. Auditioning for the No. 2 job earlier this week in Westfield, Indiana, for example, Pence got tough with the Democrat about three minutes into his speech introducing Trump to the stage.

“To paraphrase the director of the FBI, I think it’d be extremely careless to elect Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States,” Pence said. “We don’t need a president who sees Obamacare as just a good start. We don’t need a president who promises to put coal miners out of work and raise the utility rates of hard working Americans. And as the proud father of a U.S. Marine, let me say from my heart we don’t need a president who took 13 hours to send help to Americans under fire and after four brave Americans fell said, ‘What difference at this point does it make?’ Anyone who said that, anyone who did that, should be disqualified from ever being commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States of America.”





In an interview Saturday, Indiana Sen. Dan Coats said he expected Pence would maintain the same low-key style he’d honed over the course of his career, while going after Clinton “in a substantive way and in a way that defines the truth and doesn’t exaggerate the truth.”

“I think that’ll very much be a part of his candidacy here as vice president,” Coats said. “There are ways to attack your opponent but without being vicious about it, but drawing people’s attention to there’s two very different visions of going forward.”

The Clinton campaign is also doing its part to antagonize the Trump-Pence ticket. Her Twitter account on Saturday posted a list of “five things you should know about Gov. Mike Pence” including that he “would totally outlaw abortion” and that he “signed an anti-LGBT law that sparked a national outcry.” The campaign referred to him as “the most extreme pick in a generation.”

It’s also running a short digital ad in English and Spanish that starts: “Think Donald is divisive? Meet his running mate, Mike Pence.”