“Never Trumper” Bill Kristol accused Vice President Mike Pence’s allies of planting the New York Times story that indicated Pence and his ambitious chief of staff Nick Ayers are running a “shadow campaign.” The piece indicated that Ayers was signaling to donors to get ready in case President Donald Trump is unable to run for reelection in 2020.
The article also pointed out that Kristol was plotting with a group of “Never Trump” saboteurs to oust or remove Trump.
“It’s bold of Team Pence to plant the front-page NYT story on plans for 2020, then object vociferously,” Kristol tweeted on Sunday. “Multi-dimensional chess!”
In a scathing response, Pence said that the Times article was “disgraceful and offensive.”
“Whatever fake news may come our way, my entire team will continue to focus all our efforts to advance the president’s agenda and see him re-elected in 2020. Any suggestion otherwise is both laughable and absurd,” Pence added in a statement.
Legacy media journalists like Chuck Todd and Maggie Haberman piled on after Pence released his statement.