Pence: I'm not Trump's 'clean-up crew'

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is shrugging off any notion he’s a one-man “cleanup crew” for his Republican presidential running mate, Donald Trump.

“I couldn’t be more honored to be campaigning shoulder to shoulder with a man who I believe is going to be the next president of the United States,” Pence said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding, though, that he and Trump simply have “different styles.”


And that includes their approaches to the news media. Pence has for weeks said he would talk to Trump about lifting a campaign event ban sometimes imposed on some media organizations, including POLITICO, for coverage that Trump didn’t like.

Again Sunday, Trump blasted the media through his Twitter account, tweeting that “If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%.”

Asked by Fox host Chris Wallace whether the campaign would lift that ban, Pence responded, “I don’t think Donald Trump is having any problem getting press at this point. He gets a lot an awful lot of attention.”

Asked whether stylistic differences like Trump’s statements about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a slain American soldier, after they criticized him during last month’s Democratic National Convention, or Trump’s remarks questioning NATO’s mutual-defense commitments give Pence pause, the governor reiterated that he’s honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with Trump.

“Look, he’s not someone that spent a lifetime in politics. He speaks his heart and he speaks his mind,” Pence added. “And I truly do believe, this good man is going to be a great president of the United States.”