It’s pretty much his job, I guess.

Pence is who the administration sends out to try and be a calming force, after Trump stirs up the hornet’s nest.

This particular hornet’s nest came in the form of a released clip, where President Trump defends the actions of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, by insinuating that America was just as bad.

Unfortunately for VP Pence, he had to hit the Sunday morning shows to defend the indefensible, while Trump golfed.

From The Washington Examiner:

“We now have a president who is reengaging a world from which America has been stepping back over the last eight years,” the former Indiana governor said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” In a clip of an interview set to air before the Super Bowl, Trump responded to a remark about Putin being a “killer” by saying, “We got a lot of killers — what, you think our country’s so innocent?”

That isn’t reengaging. That’s a desperate justification.

“There was no moral equivalency,” Pence said, adding, “What you heard there was a determination to attempt to deal with the world as it is. Let’s start afresh with Putin, and to start afresh with Russia.” When pressed by host John Dickerson on his comments, Pence repeated: “What I can tell you is that there is no moral equivalency in what the president was saying.

So is the VP carrying water for Trump?

Of course he is. His suggestion that we can wipe the slate clean with Russia, as if Vladimir Putin, faced with an admiring U.S. president will turn from ruthless despot to honorable man makes no sense.

It makes no sense and it is dangerous.

When pressed on the ideal of American exceptionalism:

“I believe that the ideals that America has stood for throughout our history represent the highest ideals of humankind,” Pence replied. “Shouldn’t we be able to say yes to that question though,” Dickerson asked. Pence replied: “I think it’s without question … that American ideals are superior to countries all across the world.”

Yes, they are.

The question that needs to be asked is if we have leaders who are poisoning political opponents or murdering journalists, and if so, who are they?

Because that’s what Putin does, and we can’t start fresh with somebody like that.