FOREIGN POLICY/IRAN/MIKE PENCE/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “At the Munich Security Conference in February, the face of the Trump administration was Vice President Mike Pence, who urged longstanding American allies to pull out of a denuclearization deal with Iran. When President Trump needed an emissary to describe his proposed tax overhaul in 2017, Mr. Pence was deployed to more than 50 events, meeting with small groups of business owners to promote the bill’s benefits. And as the president seeks to persuade farmers and manufacturers to get behind his revamped North American Free Trade Agreement, he will dispatch Mr. Pence to travel to the industrial Midwest to make the case to voters in moderate districts. More than halfway into Mr. Trump’s term, he and Mr. Pence have developed what aides describe as a rhythm, in which the president lays out the broad contours of policy and then hands off to the vice president to make the granular sales pitch.”
–Maggie Haberman, “On White House Policy Issues, Pence Plays the Role of Decoder,” The New York Times online, May 6, 2019