Vice President Pence’s daughter Charlotte Pence said Friday that, despite the Trump administration’s acrimonious relationship with the press, her father always taught her that the media should be allowed to criticize elected officials.
“As a daughter, it’s not fun to hear negative things said about somebody that you love, but growing up, and still now, my dad really always kind of taught us that that’s how the system is supposed to work, that people in the media, and even just everyday citizens, are allowed and should talk about things that they’re not happy about with their elected officials,” Pence told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“That’s a great thing about America, and it’s not true for every country, so I think that we just kind of grew up kind of knowing that criticism was part of public life,” she continued.
Pence is promoting her new book “Where You Go: Life Lessons from My Father,” which details her experience on the 2016 presidential campaign trail, among other experiences with the former Indiana governor.
The vice president has touted the importance of free press in the past, most recently in September when he called for the release of two journalists who were sentenced this week to seven years in jail in Myanmar.
“Freedom of religion & freedom of the press are essential to a strong democracy,” Pence tweeted.
President Trump has launched a series of attacks on the media throughout his campaign and presidency over coverage he says is biased against him.
He joked at a campaign rally on Thursday that Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) was able to get elected last year because he body-slammed a reporter just before the vote.
“We endorsed Greg really early, but I heard that he had body-slammed a reporter. And he was way up … and I said, ‘Oh, this is terrible, he’s going to lose the election.’ But then I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him,’ and it did … He’s a great guy and a tough cookie,” Trump said.
— Julia Manchester
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