President Donald Trump wasn’t planning to attend the recent National Rifle Association convention — that is, until he learned that Vice President Mike Pence would be giving the keynote address.

That led to a change of plans in the West Wing, according to two people familiar with the arrangement, and nearly a week after the NRA announced Pence would speak, the president was added to the schedule to speak moments after Pence.


It wasn’t the first time Trump has changed his plans to one-up the veep. It was originally Pence, not Trump, who planned to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But upon seeing who else would be attending, Trump decided to make the trip himself instead, bumping Pence off the schedule, according to a person familiar with the matter. A White House official said that neither scheduling decision was based on the vice president’s plans.

And Trump is elbowing out Pence in other, smaller, ways: On Monday, the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List announced Trump would be headlining its annual Washington gala this year, after Pence gave the keynote address last year. An official said that plan was weeks in the making.

From the start, the former Indiana governor has avoided criticizing Trump or even disagreeing with him publicly, and has silently stepped aside when Trump has decided the spotlight should be his — so much so that the conservative columnist George Will recently accused him of “groveling.” Pence has played the role of loyal surrogate, enthusiastic cheerleader and constant defender, calling on special counsel Robert Mueller to wrap up his investigation and dismissing questions swirling around Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen as a “private matter.”

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And Pence’s team has worked assiduously to dispel any rumors that Pence might be harboring his own ambitions for the Oval Office, even as Pence hired a political operator as his chief of staff and formed a leadership PAC to support Republican congressional candidates.

But that hasn’t stopped the president from going out of his way to make sure Pence stays in his shadow.

“It was always pretty apparent that Pence had a role, and that role was to be subservient to Trump,” said a former White House official who also served on the campaign. “Pence should be not seen and not heard and kind of put away in a corner and used as needed.”

The vice president has in recent months taken a starring role on the campaign trail, promoting the Republican tax reform bill for America First Policies, Trump’s issue-advocacy group.

But on Monday, Trump’s first campaign manager and frequent adviser Corey Lewandowski announced he’ll be joining Pence’s own political action committee, Great America. “Proud to be joining the Great America PAC. @realDonaldTrump and @MikePenceVP continue to fulfill the Camapign [cq] Promises they made to Make America Great Again!” Lewandowski tweeted. “The Rep’s will expand majorities in the Senate and hold the House to keep America moving forward.”

The PAC, which finances Pence’s travel around the country to stump for GOP candidates and cuts checks to favored members of Congress and governors, has been viewed by some as a vehicle for Pence to pursue his own ambitions beyond the vice presidency. Lewandowski’s move, which was first reported by Fox News, puts one of the original Trump loyalists at the heart of Pence’s political camp.



“This is all in preparation for the reelect,” said Marty Obst, a top Pence adviser who oversees the PAC. “Our goal is to support the president’s agenda, support candidates who do the same. That’s the whole purpose of the leadership PAC.”

The first sign of tensions emerged in recent weeks when it was revealed that Pence’s doctor, Jennifer Peña, was among the more than 20 people who spoke with the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee about concerns regarding the conduct of Ronny Jackson, Trump’s White House doctor, who subsequently withdrew his nomination to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But Pence’s team quickly sought to demonstrate fealty to Trump. Peña, they noted, was assigned to him by the White House Medical Unit, and was not a handpicked member of Pence’s staff. Days after Jackson withdrew his nomination, Peña resigned.

Strain, or the illusion of it, between the president and vice president has been a near-permanent feature in Washington, with Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s unusually close relationship being the exception that proved the rule. Vice President Dick Cheney was seen as a hawkish puppeteer in George W. Bush’s White House and was marginalized as Bush’s presidency wore on. Al Gore famously sought to distance himself from Bill Clinton during the 2000 presidential race in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Pence toyed with making a 2016 presidential run but announced in May 2015 he’d sit out the race, a month before Trump declared his candidacy. The vice president played a key role in Trump’s failed effort to repeal Obamacare as well as in the successful tax bill push.

He has so far remained clear of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election — and was cast as a victim of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s lies about contacts with Russians before Flynn’s firing in February 2017.

“Mike Pence, while having a political future, has been 100 percent loyal to Donald Trump, which may or may not present Pence issues down the road,” said Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to Bush. “What Mike Pence wisely recognizes is his wagon is hitched to Donald Trump no matter what.”

With that in mind, he said, it only makes sense for Pence to be as ardent a supporter as possible of Trump’s agenda. “A successful Trump presidency will put Mike Pence in a relatively strong position,” Fleischer said. “An unsuccessful presidency for Donald Trump will likely doom him.”

But Pence could face a challenge in the near future as Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is battling brain cancer, is expected to request, according to reports, that Pence attend his funeral rather than the president, who insulted McCain’s war record early in his candidacy and more recently has done nothing to disavow comments made by a staffer dismissing McCain as a result of his terminal illness.

Seeing Pence warmly welcomed by someone who snubbed him could trigger Trump’s anger — or, more likely, send him on an unrelated Twitter rant to draw the attention back to himself.

“Knowing the president somewhat, I do not think Trump thinks anyone overshadows him,” Mary Matalin, a former counselor to Cheney, said in an email to POLITICO. “And he is right about that.”

Christopher Cadelago and Eliana Johnson contributed to this report.

