Vice President Mike Pence and his team bring an entirely different ethos and set of values to the administration. | Getty Pence molds the government in his own image Pence and his team bring an entirely different ethos and set of values to the administration.

Donald Trump never exactly fit the conservative mold — a fact that has unnerved the GOP’s true believers.

But as the Trump administration takes shape, Vice President Mike Pence has used his position atop the transition team and in the White House to install conservative allies throughout several agencies and at almost every level of government, giving the government a more orthodox cast.


“I think this whole administration is replete with social conservatives,” said Peggy Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America, a Christian activist group, who was at the White House with other activists last week celebrating Trump’s Supreme Court pick.

Pence and his team bring an entirely different ethos and set of values to the administration. The vice president’s emphasis on limited government and his conservative social views are distinct from the America First-style populism of Trump or top advisers like Steve Bannon, creating a divide that could influence policymaking on health care, education and social issues.

Members of Pence’s tight-knit inner circle, such as longtime aide Josh Pitcock, now Pence’s chief of staff, hold key positions both in Pence’s office and across the Trump administration. Ex-Hill aide Marc Short is the White House’s liaison to Congress, and Pence political advisers Nick Ayers and Marty Obst are helping to run Trump’s new nonprofit political arm, which was created to boost the president’s agenda, and brought on Pence’s nephew, John Pence, as deputy executive director.

“Vice Present Pence surrounds himself with true conservatives,” said a former staffer from his days leading the GOP House Conference. “He did when he was on the Hill, and again in Indiana. That some of them are now in the administration bolsters the case that conservative principles will significantly undergird the president’s agenda to change Washington.”

Former employees interviewed by POLITICO describe Pence as a manager who values humility, self-discipline and employees who follow marching orders. Pence’s top aides tend to be deeply conservative and, like the vice president, evangelical Christians. Short and Ayers are devout church-goers. Pence also encourages staff to balance work with a focus on family, which stems from his deep faith.

For Pence’s political foes, the influx of Hoosiers to the Trump administration is troubling for precisely that reason. His term as governor was marked by clashes spurred by his conservatism, said Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody.

Critics said that his austerity measures led to severe understaffing at the state’s child protective services department, for instance. Pence also signed a controversial religious freedom bill that critics said allowed businesses to discriminate against gay people and which spurred blowback from companies that boycotted the state until he agreed to revise it.

“He’s got some experience in government, unlike President Trump,” Zody said. “Some people look to him for that. But when you’re being governed by an ideology — that can cause problems.”

All indications are that Pence will continue to push the conservative ideals that animate him. Last week, he helped circulate a “religious freedom” draft order in the White House that bore similarities to the law he had pushed in Indiana according to Family Research Council CEO Tony Perkins. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner successfully pushed back on the effort to get the order signed.

And he is stocking HHS with allies who take a similar view of the Affordable Care Act. As a lawmaker, Pence opposed its passage, though he used it to expand Medicaid as governor — and later, he railed against the law on the 2016 campaign trail.

Now, he and his inner circle are poised to play key parts in the fight for repeal. They include Indiana’s former Medicaid consultant, Seema Verma, now the president’s nominee to lead the agency that oversees Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid within Health and Human Services. Verma pushed a conservative-friendly Medicaid expansion in Indiana, and if confirmed, would oversee implementation of an Obamacare replacement plan.

Tom Price, the president’s HHS secretary, is a Pence ally from the Hill.

Other Pence proteges include Brian Neale, who worked on health care in Indiana and is currently the agency’s point person on Medicaid, as well as Matt Lloyd, former Pence deputy chief of staff from the governor’s mansion, now the agency’s spokesman.

The heavy Hoosier presence in the administration is no coincidence: Since Pence assumed control of the transition from Gov. Chris Christie in November, his close advisers have tapped Hoosiers and aides to Indiana members of Congress to fill some of 4,000 political jobs in the administration.

Multiple people with ties to Indiana politics said they saw a flood of applicants send resumes to the Trump transition. That influx has slowed as agency heads have started taking control and hiring their preferred staff.

Two of the eight members of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council have Indiana ties: Rob Goad, an aide to Rep. Luke Messer, is Trump’s point person on education policy. Ja’Ron Smith, who served under Pence when he led the House Republican Conference, leads urban affairs and revitalization.

And Ryan Jarmula — who worked for Pence in both Washington and Indiana — took on a role under Trump adviser Stephen Miller during the campaign and has since joined the White House in a policy and speech-writing advisory role.

Pence’s allies are also among those who will be called upon to sell the White House’s ideas to members of Congress and the public.

As the head of Trump’s legislative affairs shop, Short will play a key role coordinating congressional and White House efforts to pass repeal-and-replace legislation. Lloyd will have the task of explaining the advantages of any Obamacare replacement to the public while minimizing political fallout.

Outside of government, Ayers and Obst at America First will help build public support for whatever path the administration chooses.

In addition, Pence will have a legislative team of his own — a far cry from his early years on Capitol Hill, when he crossed the Republican establishment by opposing the expansion of Medicare Part D, as well as the passage of the ambitious education law called No Child Left Behind under then-President George W. Bush.

Jonathan Hiler, who has worked with Pence, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), is now leading the team and will coordinate closely with the White House side of the operation led by Short.

Even for those inside the government, of course, there is no guarantee of having Trump’s ear: Former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats — Trump’s director of national intelligence — was recently removed as a full member of the National Security Council, while Trump confidante Bannon was given a role.

And there are signs the Trump White House is sensitive to reports that Pence would run the show. Administration officials have taken to referring to Pence as an executor for Trump’s plans, not an originator.

Asked recently for a statement ahead of Pence’s speech to Republican members of Congress in Philadelphia, Pence’s press secretary described the speech as focusing on “excitement about the President’s agenda moving forward.”

Outside the administration, meanwhile, other Hoosiers are trading on their ties to Pence to boost business.

Former Pence chief of staff Bill Smith announced shortly after Trump’s victory that he would open a Washington, D.C., branch of his Indiana lobbying firm. Smith is partnering with Fidelis Government Relations, whose clients include Microsoft and the Alliance for Israel Advocacy.

Also likely to benefit is the law and lobbying firm Barnes & Thornburg, based in Indiana with offices in Washington. Partner and former Pence counsel Matt Morgan recently left the firm to join the vice president’s office.

And partner Bob Grand, a longtime Pence donor, helped plan Trump’s inauguration. Grand recently registered clients as a federal lobbyist after a long hiatus, among them gun maker Sig Sauer, in anticipation of doing more federal lobbying.

“This is an administration that’s going to be focused on getting a lot of things done,” Grand said. “We can help. I’m obviously very loyal to Mike Pence, and he’s a very loyal guy too.”

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