So Help Me God by Mike Pence

Author:Mike Pence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Maximum Pressure

Have no fellowship with the unfaithful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

—Ephesians 5:11

Karen and I returned to Washington just in time for another speech, the president’s first State of the Union address. Trump’s speaking style is improvisational and freewheeling. It is part of his appeal. But when the occasion required, working with his speechwriter Stephen Miller—no other writer better understood how Trump communicated—he soared. The president put a tremendous amount of effort into formal speeches, none more so than the State of the Union address. Though I didn’t often help with them, I would review a draft of each once-a-year address and sit in on his rehearsals in the Map Room of the White House. Trump would have half a dozen speechwriters and policy staffers seated around him as he stood at a podium and rehearsed the speech with a teleprompter. Invariably, he would edit almost every other line on the spot and have them retype it. “No, say it this way.”

The State of the Union address he delivered on January 31, 2018, like his previous address to Congress, was optimistic. And a year into the administration there was plenty to be optimistic about. US employers had created 2.4 million jobs since we had arrived in the White House, African American unemployment was at a forty-five-year low. A giant new tax cut was on the way. Billions of dollars had already been invested in the United States by companies like Apple since the tax bill had passed. AT&T had distributed bonuses to its employees around the country following the tax cut. Abroad, though, as the president noted, we still faced challenges. One tradition of the State of the Union address, dating back to the presidency of Ronald Reagan, is that the president invites American heroes—firefighters, policemen, and the widows of fallen soldiers—to the gallery of the House of Representatives, where the speech is delivered. During the course of the speech the president often tells their inspiring stories and asks them to stand, to a rousing ovation. In 2018, the president invited the parents of Otto Warmbier.

Otto was a twenty-one-year-old college student from Cincinnati, Ohio. He was curious and bubbly—a smart and funny kid. He never missed a day of school or had a grade below an A. No wonder: he studied seven hours a day. By the time of his junior year he had enough credits at the University of Virginia to earn a degree. More important, his parents loved him deeply, and they loved watching him grow into a man. Then in 2016, while studying in Hong Kong, he traveled to North Korea as part of a tour group. On his way out of the country, on January 2, 2016, he was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport and charged with treason for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. He was subsequently given a sham trial and sentenced to fifteen years of labor for a crime against the state. His parents’ efforts to gain his release were

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