Would Donald Fire Mike Pence? Can He?

Remember this tweet?

How worried must Pence be about being dumped from the ticket to go these lengths to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars at a Trump resort? https://t.co/sS9OtkTxSi

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 3, 2019

I assumed Kristol was mostly kidding, just piling on the "What was he thinking?" snarkfest when Mike Pence's stay at Donald's hotel in Ireland became a big story. Now I'm wondering, is Pence really at risk? Bill Kristol and Rick Wilson, in tweets posted yesterday, apparently think so:  

By the way, Trump’s dumping him. https://t.co/XKX4z04fq3

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 10, 2019

When Trump finally fires Mike Pence, there will still be people in DC who are shocked.

Don't you people get it?

This is a reality show, not a government.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) September 11, 2019

Can Donald fire his Vice President? Probably not directly. Unlike cabinet Secretaries and White House staff members, the VP doesn't serve solely "at the pleasure of the president." He was elected by the people and sworn in via oath on Inauguration Day, just like Donald. If Donald decides he wants Pence gone, he'd have to convince him to "resign" and I'd say it's at least possible that the VP wouldn't go, or at least not quietly.

The other option for Donald would be to keep Pence on as VP for the rest of this term, but select someone else as his running mate for the 2020 election. If that sounds machiavellian and not very nice, well, yes, it would be but it's not unprecedented. Franklin Roosevelt had three vice presidents over the course of his 12-year presidency. John Nance Garner was his running mate in 1932 and 1936 and served eight years as VP. For the 1940 election, FDR dumped Garner and selected someone named Henry A. Wallace, who I had never heard of before doing some googling to write this post. (In truth, I probably learned about him in junior high school history classes, but Vice President Wallace was less than memorable.) Wallace served one term then got dumped himself for Harry Truman. Truman was elected, with FDR, in the 1944 election, and sworn in as VP on January 20, 1945. Just shy of 12 weeks later, FDR died and Truman became president. More recently, President Ford dropped his vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, and selected Senator Bob Dole as his running mate in 1976.

Can you imagine the political feeding frenzy that would ensue if Donald even hinted that he has fallen out of love with Mike Pence? In the past 74 years, three vice presidents, Truman, Lyndon Johnson (1963) and Gerald Ford (1974) have been promoted to the top job as a result of presidential death or resignation. (In the same period of time, only one sitting VP, George H.W. Bush in 1988, was able to get himself elected to the presidency.) I've said here before that I believe one of the key reasons Pence agreed to work for Donald was the possibility that Donald wouldn't last a full term. That possibility makes the VP job very appealing, even with Donald as the boss. I can only imagine how ugly things could get with Mike Pence desperately trying to keep his job while every other Republican, from Nikki Haley to Mitt Romney to Chris Christie, is desperately trying to replace him in it.

Would Donald really break up with Mike Pence? Based on everything we've seen so far, I'd say it's not out of question. I considered the possibility of Pence becoming president back in January, click here to read that post.