Mike Pence Is No Ordinary Wingman

In picking him as his vice-presidential partner, Donald J. Trump brought on board someone who knows his way around Washington and cares about details. Why the former altar boy might make this work.

- Philip Elliott

HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER Nancy Pelosi kept her fingers interlocked on the polished table, a smile fixed to her face. This was not how she had hoped to spend the weeks after the 2016 election, sitting next to Vice President–elect Mike Pence. But the voters had called the shot. If there was any consolation to the awkward scene, it was that the two power brokers had known each other for years, well enough that when Pelosi dropped protocol to call him “Mike,” he laughed and welcomed the informality. “You’re going to be a very valuable player in all of this,” she said to Pence, “because you know the territory, and I know—with no disrespect for the sensitivity and knowledge of the President-elect—you know the territory. So in that territory, we will try to find our common ground where we can.”

It’s a good bet that Pelosi intended to throw some shade on President-elect Donald Trump. But Pence let it blow by because he knew what he was there to do. There is no one in America, save the President-elect himself, who has more responsibility to make Trump’s first term a success. Key among Pence’s tasks, after staffing the new Administration and keeping the peace with conservative activists, is finding a way to reach across party lines to make the government work. Perhaps that’s why he described his meeting with Pelosi as the first of many, called her “a worthy opponent” and reflected fondly on their debates over the years in the House. That same day, he offered incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer his personal cell-phone number with an open invitation to call. “Politics is the art of the possible, and knowing people and having relationships is finding out what is possible,” Pence told TIME weeks later during a brief interview at Trump Tower.