Mediaboss Marketing

Adam Rippon, openly gayfigure skating champion, reportedlyturned down an offer to meet withMike Penceafter lambasting him for his position on LGBT rights prompting the vice president to publicly respond.

According to a report published byUSA Today on Wednesday, a member of Pences staff reached out to the U.S. Olympic Committee to set up a conversation between the 58-year-old politician and the 28-year-old athlete back in January.

The alleged request came the same day USA Today published an interview with Rippon in which he saidhewanted to skip the standard meet-and-greet event between Team USA athletes and the American delegation, which is being led by Pence for this years opening ceremony.

You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy? Rippon,who publicly came out as gay in 2015, said in the Jan. 17 piece. Im not buying it.

Jarrod Agen, the vice presidents deputy chief of staff and communications director, refuted that a meeting was requested in a statement given to PEOPLE.

The USA Today report is false and should be corrected.The vice presidents office did not reach out to set up a conversation with Mr. Rippon, Agen said. As weve said before, the Vice President is supporting all the U.S. athletes in the Olympics and is hoping they all win medals.But this story is just not accurate.

Rippons rep declined to comment to PEOPLE on the USA Today report, as did USOC officials.

Adam Rippon and Mike Pence

Tim Bradbury/Getty; Chip Somodevilla/Getty

In a statement to PEOPLE back in January, Pences press secretary,Alyssa Farah, said that the vice president does not and has never supported conversion therapy. The accusation is totally false with no basis in fact, Farah said.

Despite these misinformed claims [about conversion therapy], the vice president will be enthusiastically supporting all the U.S. athletes competing next month in Pyeongchang, Farrah said.

But LGBT advocates have pointedto a 2000 statementon Pences congressional campaign website where he noted that Congress should reauthorize a law funding HIV/AIDS treatment but resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.

Beyond the issue of gay conversion therapy, Pence a self-described religious conservative has taken multiple anti-LGBT positions over the years.

If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they arent a friend of a gay person but that they think that theyre sick, Rippon toldUSA Today. I wouldnt go out of my way to meet somebody like that.

Mike Pence

Jeff Roberson/AP

Pence also responded, himself, toUSA Todays latest report on Wednesday, taking a cue from President Donald Trumps playbook and calling their claims fake news.

Headed to the Olympics to cheer on #TeamUSA, he tweeted. One reporter trying to distort 18 yr old non-story to sow seeds of division. We wont let that happen! #FAKENEWS. Our athletes are the best in the world and we are for ALL of them! #TEAMUSA

He also wrote to Rippon directly on Twitter, saying, I want you to know we are FOR YOU. Dont let fake news distract you. I am proud of you and ALL OF OUR GREAT athletes and my only hope for you and all of #TeamUSA is to bring home the gold. Go get em!

In his original conversation with USA Today, Rippon said he would be open to meeting with Pence after the Olympic games.

If I had the chance to meet him [Pence] afterwards, after Im finished competing, there might be a possibility to have an open conversation, Rippon said. He seems more mild-mannered than Donald Trump. But I dont think the current administration represents the values that I was taught growing up. Mike Pence doesnt stand for anything that I really believe in.

Adam Rippon

Maddie Meyer/Getty

RELATED VIDEO: PEOPLE Writer Natasha Stoynoff Breaks Silence, Accuses Donald Trump of Sexual Attack

Rippon stood by his views when speaking to PEOPLE.

I just dont think thats right, he said, and I think there are so many people who also dont think thats right and I think right now more than ever I have this window of time to say what I feel and hopefully make a change.

My mom has always taught me to stand up for people who dont have a voice, Rippon added. Sharing my story [coming out] in 2015, I remember thinking if just one person hears this and reads it and it makes them feel like they arent alone, that would be awesome. Now to be headed to the Olympics, my story now has a bigger platform and Ive heard from so many different kinds of people.

He continued: Its so amazing and it makes me feel like coming out it was way more important than I even realized.

The 2018 Winter Olympics will air live starting Feb. 8 on NBC. To learn more, visitteamusa.org.

Excerpt from:
Mike Pence Responds After Adam Rippon Turns Down ... - people.com

See also: Mike Pence vice presidential campaign, 2016

Mike Pence

Present officeholder

Prior offices

Governor of Indiana

U.S. House of Representatives Indiana District 6

U.S. House of Representatives Indiana District 2

Personal

How will 2018 influence the direction of the Republican party?

Get the important Democratic or Republican Party news from Ballotpedia this primary season, including elections for U.S. Senate & House, governor, and other statewide offices.

Sign up for free today

Michael Richard "Mike" Pence is the 48th vice president of the United States. He was elected on November 8, 2016. President Donald Trump announced that he had selected Pence as his running mate on July 15, 2016.[1]

Pence served as the 50th governor of Indiana from January 14, 2013, to January 9, 2017. In April 2013, an analysis of Republican governors conducted by Nate Silver of the New York Times ranked Pence as the second most conservative governor in the country.[2]

From 2001 to 2013, Pence served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. During his final year in the House, Pence was rated a "far-right Republican leader" based on an analysis of bill sponsorship by GovTrack.[3]

As of January 24, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence had cast eight tie-breaking votes in the Senate:

Pence was born in Columbus, Indiana. He graduated from Hanover College in 1981, and he earned his J.D. from Indiana University School of Law in 1986.[11] After graduating from Hanover, Pence worked as an admissions counselor at the college until 1983. He then went to law school and worked as a private practice attorney from 1986 to 1990. From 1991 to 1994, he served as president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation and was a talk show host on Network Indiana from 1994 to 2000. In 2000, he began his political career.[12]

Pence is the 48th vice president of the United States. He was elected vice president on November 8, 2016, and sworn in on January 20, 2017.

Pence served as governor of Indiana from January 14, 2013 to January 9, 2017. He was succeeded by Eric Holcomb (R).[13][14]

Pence served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013. In 2000, he won election to Indiana's 2nd congressional district. In 2002, the district was renumbered as Indiana's 6th congressional district. Pence served in the seat until 2013.

The Personal Gain Index (U.S. Congress) is a two-part measurement that illustrates the extent to which members of the U.S. Congress have prospered during their tenure as public servants. It consists of two different metrics:

Based on congressional financial disclosure forms and calculations made available by OpenSecrets.org, Pence's net worth as of 2010 was estimated between $11,015 and $169,000. That averages to $90,007.50, which was lower than the average net worth of Republican representatives in 2010 of $7,561,133.[15] Between 2004 and 2012, Pence's calculated net worth[16] increased by an average of 155 percent per year. Between 2004 and 2014, the average annual percentage increase for a member of Congress was 15.4 percent.[17]

Each year National Journal published an analysis of how liberally or conservatively each member of Congress voted in the previous year. Pence ranked 19th in the conservative rankings in 2011.[20]

Mike Pence voted with the Republican Party 94 percent of the time, which ranked 74th among the 242 House Republican members as of November 2011.[21]

Click on the tiles below to see Pence's issue positions on domestic, economic, and foreign policy when he was a member of Congress, governor of Indiana, and the 2016 Republican vice presidential nominee.

Click the tiles below to learn more about Pence's positions on domestic affairs.

Click the tiles below to learn more about Pence's positions on economic affairs and government regulations.

Click the tiles below to learn more about Pence's positions on foreign affairs and national security.

Click the tiles below to learn more about Pence's character, communications, and leadership positions.

Several news outlets reported that Pence was traveling to meet with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 1, 2016, and that he was formally being vetted as a potential running mate for Trump. Pence's office confirmed the meeting in an official statement, but the governor downplayed a possible VP pick, saying, "I haven't talked to him about that topic. My focus is here in the Hoosier state and that is where it will stay."[22]

On July 15, 2016, Trump announced that he had selected Pence as his running mate.[1]

Pence was a member of Donald Trump's presidential transition team. The transition team was a group of around 100 aides, policy experts, government affairs officials, and former government officials who were tasked with vetting, interviewing, and recommending individuals for top cabinet and staff roles in Trump's administration. According to The New York Times, Pence took over the transition's chairmanship, which had previously been run by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, on November 11, 2016.[23]

Pence endorsed Donald Trump for the Republican primary in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[24]

Pence had previously endorsed Ted Cruz.[25]

Pence initially filed as a candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2016 and ran unopposed in the Republican primary election. However, after rumors had circulated for weeks, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announced in the morning on July 15, 2016, via Twitter that Pence would be joining his ticket as his running mate and vice presidential pick. Pence withdrew from the race the same day, just prior to the noon deadline.[26]

Pence was considered a potential Republican candidate for the 2016 presidential election. However, he announced that he would not seek the presidency on May 19, 2015.[27][28]

Pence won election as governor of Indiana in 2012. Pence was slated to face Fishers businessman Jim Wallace in the May 8, 2012, Republican primary election, but Wallace was removed from the ballot by the Indiana Election Commission on February 24, 2012, for failing to receive the requisite 500 signatures per congressional district. Thus, Pence was unopposed in the Republican primary, and he defeated former House Speaker John Gregg (D), Rupert Boneham (L), and write-in candidate Donnie Harold Harris in the general election on November 6, 2012.[29][30][31]

In terms of economic development, Pence said, "We would identify personnel in the IEDC with essentially an investment background that we would recruit and say, 'We want you to go to each community in this state and evaluate the assets on the ground. And we want you to meet with business leaders.'"[32]

In a letter to Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) in August 2012, Pence said that if elected governor he would not set up a health insurance exchange in Indiana, leaving the job to the federal government instead. I believe Indiana should take no part in this deeply flawed health care bureaucracy, he stated.[33]

The major issue of the 2012 campaign was jobs, with each candidate detailing their plan to get citizens back to work. Pence said he would create a jobs cabinet made up of business leaders and investment specialists who would support start-up businesses.[34]

On November 2, 2010, Pence won re-election to the United States House of Representatives. He defeated Barry Welsh (D) and Talmage "T.J" Thompson Jr. (Lib.) in the general election.[35]

Pence won re-election to the position of Governor of Indiana in 2012. During that election cycle, Pence raised a total of $14,841,352.

Pence won re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. During that re-election cycle, Pence's campaign committee raised a total of $2,684,316 and spent $2,654,178.[37]

Pence and his wife, Karen, have been married since 1985. They have three children: Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.[11]

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms MikePenceVice President of the United States. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

View post:
Mike Pence - Ballotpedia

Mike Pence is a former congressman and Governor of Indiana who with running mate Donald Trump, won the 2016 election to become the Vice President of the United States.

Growing up, Pence was raised in Columbus, Indiana in an Irish-Catholic household. The young Pence idolized President John F. Kennedy and identified himself in high school as a young Democrat. While studying history at Hanover College, Pence became inspired by Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party.

Shortly after graduating from the Indiana University School of Law, Pence opened his own private practice and entered local politics. He later ran for Congress in 1988 and 1990, but lost both times. Pence then served as president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation before making the leap to talk radio with "The Mike Pence Show." The show was later syndicated in 1994 and later he entered television as a morning show host.

By 2000, Pence revived his political career and ran for Congress again, and this time he won. He quickly made a name for himself as a staunch conservative, and opposed President George W. Bushs No Child Left Behind and a Medicare expansion program. He won re-election five times before winning election as governor of Indiana in 2012.

Donald Trump chose Pence to be his running mate in July 2016, and he squared off with Hillary Clintons running mate, Tim Kaine, in a vice presidential debate. After winning the election, he headed Trumps transition team.

Pence has three children, Michael, Charlotte and Aubrey with his wife Karen. They have been married since 1985.

View original post here:
Mike Pence: Latest News & Photos - NY Daily News

Last Updated Jan 28, 2018 7:07 PM EST

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Mike Pence is headlining a fundraiser Monday at the Trump International Hotel in Washington to benefit his leadership PAC to help Republican candidates in the 2018 mid-term elections.

The fundraiser is expected to raise about $500,000 and Pence is expected to be introduced by Donald Trump Jr., the president's son. That's according to a person familiar with the planned fundraiser. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the private event.

The person said the event is expected to draw congressional leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Pence's Great America Committee was launched last year and has supported several Republican lawmakers. Pence will campaign in Pennsylvania on Friday on behalf of Rick Saccone, who is running in a special election.

2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

More here:
Mike Pence to headline fundraiser at Trump hotel in ...

JERUSALEM -- Vice President Mike Pence addressed the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, on Monday, strongly reaffirming the United States' unwavering commitment to its Middle Eastern ally and lauding his boss, President Donald Trump, for righting "a 70-year wrong" with his contentious decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jewish state. Pence told the gathered lawmakers that Mr. Trump had kept "his word to the American people" in recognizing Jerusalem.

But in spite of Pence's assertion that the U.S. remains "fully committed to achieving a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians," Jerusalem move has left the two key parties to the already flailing peace process further apart than they have been in years. The Palestinians are boycotting Mr. Pence's visit to the region over the dramatic pivot away from decades of U.S. foreign policy.

Pence committed in his speech to the Knesset to seeing the U.S. Embassy in Israel moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and reopened next year -- shortening the schedule on what has been another massive bone of contention with the Palestinians and the wider Arab world.

While Pence's declaration of a quicker move into a new embassy is sure to heighten the frustration of Palestinians and America's Arab allies, it also highlights differing opinions within the Trump administration. CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has yet to sign off on the safety plans to approve what Pence announced in Jerusalem.

He will do so, reports Brennan, when he's sure that safety and security concerns are met. Administration officials say Tillerson and Pence are on the same page, despite the coordination issue with the announcement. Brennan reported last week that the decision to shorten the timeline for the move was made at the urging of Jared Kushner and his team, largely for political reasons and against the advice of the State Department, which is responsible for the security of U.S. personnel abroad.

President Trump's deputy kicked off his first visit to Israel by meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. In spite of the fact that he flew into the Middle East on a wave of Palestinian anger over the Trump administration's unilateral recognition of the holy city as Israel's capital, Pence declared his hope that the world was witnessing "the dawn of a new era" in stagnant peace talks which have daunted politicians across the planet for decades.

CBS News Radio correspondent Robert Berger reports Pence was to hold two days of talks with Israeli leaders and visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem's disputed Old City, but the centerpiece of his visit to Israel was his speech to the Knesset.

He has received a warm welcome in Israel, which has praised the American decision last month to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. But that decision hasinfuriated the Palestiniansandupset America's Arab alliesas well.

Meeting with Netanyahu, Pence said it was an honor to be in "Israel's capital, Jerusalem." Netanyahu told Pence it was the first time a visiting dignitary could utter those three words along with him, and he thanked Pence for Mr. Trump's "historic" recognition of Jerusalem. The Israeli leader also lauded the American-Israeli alliance, which he said has "never been stronger."

He told the Knesset that he would "strongly urge" the Palestinians to rejoin a peace dialogue.

Pence said he was grateful to be representing Mr. Trump and that his decision to designate Jerusalem as the Israeli capital would "create an opportunity to move on in good faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority."

The vice president said he was hopeful "we are at the dawn of a new era of renewed discussions to achieve a peaceful resolution to a decades-long conflict."

Pence will not meet with Palestinian officials, who are boycotting his visit.

Before Israel, Pence stopped in Egypt and then Jordan, where close U.S. ally King Abdullah II appealed to him to "rebuild trust and confidence" in the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following the fallout from the administration's decision on Jerusalem.

Pence, in turn, tried to reassure the monarch that the Trump administration remains committed to restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, and that it views Jordan as a central player.

The vice president said that "the United States of America remains committed, if the parties agree, to a two state solution." That caveat deviated from long-standing U.S. support for a two-state solution as the only possible outcome of any peace deal.

President Trump's pivot on Jerusalem last month infuriated the Palestinians, who seek the Israeli-annexed eastern sector of the city as a future capital. They accused the U.S. of siding with Israel and said Washington can no longer serve as a mediator.

Jerusalem is the emotional centerpiece of the long-running conflict, and Mr. Trump's policy shift set off protests and condemnation across Arab and Muslim countries. Abdullah expressed his concerns about the regional fallout from the Jerusalem decision to Pence.

"Today we have a major challenge to overcome, especially with some of the rising frustrations," he said. He described the Pence visit as a mission "to rebuild trust and confidence" in getting to a two-state solution, in which a state of Palestine would be established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967.

Another cause of concern for Jordan is the Trump administration's decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Jordan vehemently opposes such a move if taken ahead of an Israeli-Palestinian partition deal.

Israel views Jerusalem as its unified capital, but a longstanding international consensus holds that the city's final status should be decided through negotiations, which was also U.S. policy going back decades.

In this handout photo provided by the Israel Government Press Office, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an official welcome ceremony at the Prime Minister's Office, Jan. 22, 2018 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Getty/Handout

Palestinians view Mr. Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital as a blatantly one-sided move. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would not meet with Trump administration officials and called off a meeting with Pence that had been scheduled for mid-December.

Pence was to deliver a speech to the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, later Monday before holding a joint news conference with Netanyahu. The two men were then to have dinner together in Jerusalem.

Read more:
Mike Pence in Israel: Live updates as Vice President ...