Mike Pence is back.

The former Vice President took the last 100 days off, after his secret but lavish taxpayer-funded Vail vacation in December, and now he’s back laying the groundwork to run for president by tying himself to Trump (whether the former president likes it or not) and promising to fight “the Biden administration’s whole-hearted embrace of the radical left’s all-encompassing, rapidly-escalating war on American traditional values.”

Pence chose as his first post-White House venue a Southern religious right organization tied to an anti-LGBTQ hate group called Palmetto Family.

It did not go well.

“As Pence spoke, no cable channel picked up his remarks. Just a few dozen people at any given time watched him live on Facebook, including roughly 55 when the speech ended,” Politico reports in a piece titled, “Mike Pence reemerges. But Trumpworld is moving on.”

The speech was carried live on C-SPAN, which included a 2024 logo in the chyron, just in case there was any question about why Pence was speaking.

His speech was filled with bad jokes, praise for Trump which Pence magnificently managed to twist into praise for himself, and false claims including that they “made America greater than ever before.”

And these:

Our agenda is clear. It’s the agenda implemented in the Trump-Pence Administration, built on a strong national defense, secure borders, free-market economics, America first trade deals, Conservative judges & upholding all of the God-given liberties enshrined in the Constitution. pic.twitter.com/w3bAalJJwx

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) April 30, 2021

“In just 100 days,” Pence also claimed, “the Biden-Harris administration has launched an avalanche of liberal policies that threaten to derail all the progress that we made.”

Pence promised in the future he will continue to protect religious liberty and gun rights, because that’s “the winning agenda,” he told supporters.

“It’s incumbent upon us to take that winning agenda to the American people,” he added, positioning himself as being given a mandate to run for president without actually saying it.

But there was so little interest in Pence’s speech he (or his team) had to tweet out the videos of him speaking, and many of the people tweeting about his speech were members of the press.

He also tweeted out snippets from his speech, like these:

The most disturbing development of the last 100 days has been the Biden administration’s whole-hearted embrace of the radical left’s all-encompassing, rapidly-escalating war on American traditional values:

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) April 30, 2021

They abolished the 1776 commission aimed at promoting patriotism in American education, they authorized teaching Critical Race Theory in federal agencies and public schools, and they restored Title 10 funding to Planned Parenthood.

Had enough? I have.

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) April 30, 2021

We will reject Critical Race Theory in our schools and public institutions, and we will CANCEL Cancel Culture wherever it arises!

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) April 30, 2021

In an interview airing today, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan sat down with Donald Trump, starting off by asking the president if he would consider another government shutdown in the wake of the most recent one that caused chaos over 35 days.

The president initially took a “wait and see” approach, saying, “we’re going to have to see what happens on February 15th.”

When pressed by Brennan if the president was willing to take another shutdown over him getting funding for his southern border wall between the United States and Mexico off the table, the president was much clearer. 

“Well, I don’t — I don’t take anything off the table,” said Trump. “I don’t like to take things off the table. It’s that alternative. It’s national emergency, it’s other things and you know there have been plenty national emergencies called.”

“This really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers,” continued the President. “These are people that are horrible people bringing in women mostly, but bringing in women and children into our country. Human trafficking. And we’re going to have a strong border. And the only way you have a strong border is you need a physical barrier. You need a wall. And anybody that says you don’t, they’re just playing games.”

The president also struck a defiant tone about the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. 

“I think that she was very rigid — which I would expect — but I think she is very bad for our country,” Trump said. “She knows that you need a barrier. She knows that we need border security. She wanted to win a political point. I happen to think it’s very bad politics because basically she wants open borders. She doesn’t mind human trafficking or she wouldn’t do this.”

Brennan reminded the president that Pelosi offered over one billion dollars for border security, but without Trump’s wall, to which Trump claimed Pelosi is costing the United States hundreds of billions.

“She’s costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because what’s happening is when you have a porous border, and when you have drugs pouring in, and when you have people dying all over the country because of people like Nancy Pelosi who don’t want to give proper border security for political reasons, she’s doing a terrible disservice to our country,” said Trump. “And on the 15th we have now set the table beautifully because everybody knows what’s going on because of the shutdown. People that didn’t have any idea — they didn’t have a clue as to what was happening, they now know exactly what’s happening. They see human trafficking. They see drugs and gangs and criminals pouring in. Now, we catch them because we’re doing a great job. But if we had proper border security, we wouldn’t have to work so hard and we could do an even better job, and I think Nancy Pelosi is doing a terrible disservice to the people of our country.”

When Brennan reminded Trump that he would, nevertheless, have to make a deal with Pelosi, Trump remained argumentative. 

“No, she can keep playing her games, but we will win. Because we have a much better issue. On a political basis, what she’s doing is — I actually think it’s bad politics, but much more importantly it’s very bad for our country,” said Trump.

View an excerpt from the interview below:

Image via screen capture from video source.

Larry Kudlow, one of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisors and his Director of the National Economic Council, told Fox Business News Thursday afternoon that the shutdown affecting 800,000 federal workers who have not been paid in a month is just a “glitch.”

Kudlow was bragging about what he described as a “continued, strong American economy.”

Kudlow, himself a former CNBC host, also told reporters earlier Thursday the shutdown was just a glitch, a word he repeated several times.

“The moment, the nanosecond the government is … reopened all these glitches will go away,” the White House press pool reports Kudlow saying.

Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, just repeatedly referred to the government shutdown as a “glitch” and predicted the “nanosecond” the government reopens, the economic hardship will be fixed.

A glitch.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) January 24, 2019

“Yes soon as this thing goes, the switch will be turned on, the payments will be made, we’ll go back to normal, this is just a glitch,” Kudlow also said. “They’re going to get it back,” he said of federal workers who as of Friday will have gone a month without a paycheck.

In a gaggle at the White House, econ adviser Larry Kudlow “repeatedly referred to the government shutdown as a ‘glitch,'” per pooler @TalKopan

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) January 24, 2019

Kudlow’s stunningly out-of-touch remarks come barely a few hours after Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, also speaking to CNBC, said “I just don’t quite understand” why federal workers, many of whom still are forced to come to work, have to turn to food banks to feed their families.

And on Wednesday Lara Trump, who serves as a campaign adviser to President Trump and is married to Trump’s son Eric, said federal workers are just going through “a little bit of pain.” She added that It’s “worth it,” for the good of the country’s future.

Thursday afternoon Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted Secretary Ross’ remarks as  a “let them eat cake kind of attitude.”