Vice President Pence in an interview broadcast Sunday said that accounts in veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s new book that Trump insults his Cabinet members are “very foreign to me,” adding that the president can be “tough” and “demanding” and “wants things yesterday.”
“I would tell you I know this president has great respect for the men and women who serve in this Cabinet,” Pence said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“And these accounts are very foreign to me. And I’m just not aware of instances where they’ve occurred and or where they would occur,” he added.
{mosads}Pence said he would “stipulate” that “working in the White House is not for everybody.”
“I mean this president is tough. He’s demanding. He wants things yesterday. And I think it’s one of the reasons why we’ve accomplished so much in such a short period of time. I mean the truth is I think President Donald Trump is the most accomplished president of my lifetime and I think already one of the most successful presidents in American history,” he said.
According to Woodward’s “Fear: Trump in the White House,” Trump insulted Cabinet members and high-ranking national security officials including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump reportedly called “mentally retarded.” Woodward’s book and an anonymous New York Times op-ed purportedly written by a senior administration official working to thwart parts of the president’s agenda roiled the White House last week.
Pence also said on CBS that “everything” is wrong with the narrative in Woodward’s book that people around the president are trying to protect the country from him.
“It shows a complete misunderstanding of how this White House works, and what President Trump provides for this country every day is strong and decisive leadership in the Oval Office,” Pence said.
“The narrative that I’ve picked up, in not only this book but the opinion editorials, suggests that things are happening in spite of the president’s leadership, and nothing could be further from the truth,” he added.