NEW YORK (AP) – President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to empower his running mate Mike Pence to steer the presidential transition gives the soon-to-be vice president a powerful hand in shaping the incoming government and could foreshadow that he will play an outsized role in the White House.
Pence’s ascension is in line with a recent trend toward influential vice presidents and appears similar to the last vice president who was handed the keys to a presidential transition: Dick Cheney.
As the nation was embroiled in the recount after the 2000 election, George W. Bush informally entrusted Cheney to begin building the government even before the outcome was settled in favor of the Republican ticket. Some of the work was done sitting around Cheney’s kitchen table in McLean, Virginia, remembered Ari Fleischer, who became Bush’s first press secretary.
“This is a big test for Pence,” Fleischer told The Associated Press. “If it goes well, it will portend a bigger job for him in the White House.”
Cheney clearly passed that test and became one of the most powerful vice presidents in recent memory, particularly during Bush’s first term. Cheney not only ran Bush’s vice presidential search team – eventually picking himself – he stocked the administration with veteran Republicans, many of whom he had known for years.