From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the demon.

Today, why Vice President Mike Pence is publicly declaring his loyalty for the president

and denouncing Times reporting about his political future.

And they endured the traumas of civil war, then life under ISIS,

the stolen childhoods of young Syrians.

It's Tuesday, August 8.

New reports claim Vice President Pence could be running a shadow campaign to run for president in 2020

if the president Donald Trump does not. This morning, the Vice President firing back.

Vice President Pence is pushing back hard on this New York Times story as our other White House officials.

Glenn Thrush, I want to talk about this pretty fascinating situation with the Vice President over the past couple of days.

It started with a story in the New York Times. What actually happened?

Well, it started with my colleagues Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns writing what should be in most White House is a fairly conventional story that the Vice President is building out his political team

and that he's got aspirations beyond being the second banana and actually mount a 2020 campaign.

But the story I think took on a greater sense of urgency because of the political predicament the president is in.

He just suffered this immense rebuke in the Senate.

You have him according to a Quinnipiac poll last week at 33%.

His approval rating, right?

His national approval rating. You have some erosion among core Republicans to the point that Kellyanne Conway, his faithful spokesperson admits that they've seen some erosion.

His approval rating among Republicans and conservative and Trump voters is down slightly. It needs to go up.

They are telling him just enact your program. Don't worry about a Congress that isn't supporting legislation to get big ticket items done.

And don't worry about all the distractions and diversions and discouragement that others who are still trying to throw logs in your path are throwing your way.

And most importantly, you're starting to see independent support among independence absolutely collapse. So this guy is really vulnerable.

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