>> we are joined by the author of the new book piety and power, mike pence and the taking of the white house. you covered mike pence in the state house in indiana for the associated press, covered him 7 or 8 years. what made you write a profile of the vice president? >> i was standing outside the us senate chamber after the november 2016 election, shaking quotes to run them down, i was looking at the marble bust and

of all the vice presidents, presiding officer of the chamber, that is when it hit me, mike pence is an american history. there will be a chiseled marble bust of mike pence here and i've got to go deep on this guy. i never understood him when covering him day today and other reporters said the same thing. tried to go deep, understand his faith in a real way, the downside of politics and that is why i did it. >> when did you start covering him? >> 2011. he was running for governor and the campaign kickoff in indiana. >> host: all the religious beliefs you talk about in the book's name, piety and power, you write that the answer to

the question of which style christianity pence espouses and how that impacts policy is not as clean-cut as progressives or conservatives would present but there are clues about his personal and political life and those answers have everything to do with why he'd stand so firmly behind donald trump, that is the piety part of this book and explain the power. have his religious beliefs evolved over the years? >> yes. this is something i noticed when talking with evangelical ministers, practitioners, he will talk about this occasionally, 1978 is when he had his salvation experience in college at the music festival. what i found out in the research is he doesn't leave the catholic church until 1994 when he starts deploying regularly to the greenwood community church, the mega-church, nondenominational, not southern baptist style

which most associate with the christian right politicized branch of uterine -- evangelicalism. they don't get into that style. it is a long conversion. to your listeners, the viewers which i write about this in the book and this is fascinating. he writes a senior thesis in hanover college in 1980. >> host: this is not a seminary. >> guest: a presbyterian college. november 1980 he votes for the evangelical in the race, jimmy carter. one month later he submits a thesis to his professor george curtis iii. the religious expressions of abraham lincoln. it is 37 pages of great research on lincoln by a college senior and it is how lincoln is struggling with his practice of faith in his feeling on organized religion

and his ambivalence and what it means for lincoln's political career going forward. when i read that i get tingles right now thinking about it. he is a college senior trying to figure out where he is in the world and where he is in politics. he is struggling with faith, public service and politics. it is incredible. >> host: tom lobianco is our guest, we are talking about mike pence in particular in his book "piety and power: mike pence and the taking of the white house". we welcome your calls and comments, republicans, 202-748-8001, democrats 202-748-8000 and independents 202-748-2002 or send a text, 8003. one of the themes throughout the book, he relies on his wife karen for influence and support and helping him decide things.

how did that evolve? >> they meet in 1983 in st. thomas aquinas church across the street from the governor's mansion where karen grew up. they meet in the catholic church, get married in the catholic church in 1985. 1986 he graduates from law school and she is teaching, and elementary teacher. this is when you see a change in mike pence. this is when he gets concerned about becoming active in politics and starts to join the indianapolis republican party, the marion county republican party as the basic organizer. a political machine. he comes in on the ground floor. after they marry, pence starts getting active in politics. when i noticed throughout their careers it is a joint crew they make the decisions together in this is not terribly surprising.

a lot of relationships are like this. oftentimes i should take counsel and i do not. i get it and this goes to once we get to this level, vp, president, this level of politics, i felt this way as a reporter too, we get so cynical we don't believe what we are seeing. the marriage is real. democrats and other reporters, their marriage can't possibly be real. he refers to her as mother. this is not -- we hear all this stuff. it is real. it absolutely is real but so is the ambition and so is the focus on that long-term trajectory. everything i can tell, all my reporting, they did not believe they were predestined for the white house but here they are going for it and these are

joined decisions they make together. >> host: one interesting insight you write is second lady karen pence rules the roost and the antique red phone in the vice president's office is more powerful than anyone knows. this has been a feature during his governorship in indiana, just has one person on the other end, karen pence. >> dick army, when they moved to washington in 2000, 2001, dick army is the old congressman, meets with him, he is an old hand at this point, pence is a freshman and he says take some time for your family. you should have a line for your family. this will engulf you. like some of us do you should do that so that christmas of 2001, karen bott him fake antique, cherry red, they run a line through and it is old

school and it is just her and the kids, the only one that have a phone number. what i found her reporting is in particular when he was governor and she was at the office across the hall in the state house she would make phone calls throughout the day to coordinate how they were handling. >> in her role as first lady. >> this is new to the book. i had some inklings of this when covering him day today but was never able to put a finger on it until i started reporting the book. that is how she worked and that is the joint political career and power. >> host: did mike pence as vice president or karen pence, were you able to interview either of them? >> guest: they won't talk for any books or profiles. i write about this in the opening. there are a couple answers. number one, they don't see it

as their role to highlight themselves. this is the public servant attitude they talk about. the second layer of that, other books written about him, the main profiles written about him, the official a t office policy. the other answer on this is they politically don't want to piss off trump because they could be removed from the ticket hypothetically in 2020. that is not locked in. trump says he is on there, everyone says that in public but we also know what happens with trump's advises the get too much spotlight. >> host: we get lots to cover. what is his relationship with donald trump? >> guest: warm but a little aloof, not very close. i wrote about this in the book and it is still true.

trump is close to a different hoosier, stephen hilburn, an insurance magnet from the 90s. they got close when working on casinos in the 90s. he is the man responsible for donald trump's arched hand, fittingly enough the owner of australian gold and according to my sources trump enjoys using australian gold getting products. hilbert is the one who connects mike pence with donald trump in june 2016. they don't have a real relationship before that and it has been tepid ever since. pence is absolutely loyal to donald trump based on everything i have seen but never entirely sure if it runs the other way, if trump is completely oral to him. >> host: the vice president's involvement, the reporting of that, let's hear calls from carol in mills river, north carolina on the republican line.

>> caller: talking about mike pence, cnn saying he is worried about the ukraine call and everything but talking about cnn and impeachment, somebody else getting in after trump but not mike pence. this whole thing is going to be like clinton. if the senate does impeach trump, he's not going to get impeached and he will stay in power. that is what happened to bill clinton and that is what is going to happen here so i don't know why they are bringing attention to this now. it has to be something about trump and now pence. i think they should be left alone. two years of this is enough. thank you and have a great day. >> host: any thoughts? >> guest: i hear that a lot. i heard that from sources, republican sources, the this is a continued effort to delegitimize the election.

the other side, there is incredible concern over what happened with that ukraine call which we now know based on credible washington post story included pence's national security adviser so we are at the beginning of this thing. we have a lot to learn. we are only 10 days into the official impeachment inquiry. >> host: donald trump has gone through a lot of cabinet secretaries and acting folks was what about people surrounding mike pence? they long-term aids of his? >> absolutely. trump is an expansive, wild, chaotic universe. mike pence is tightly controlled. a very small circle. mark short, the current chief of staff, came on -- >> host: for vice president pence.

>> guest: came on in 2009. in his career you see a change in trajectory from 2008-2009 when they get serious about running for the white house and that is the team that is still with him. those are the most important people and it really changes. you don't see a lot of new entrants. >> host: david in maryland, go ahead. >> caller: i am now fan of vice president pence because he is an enabler, passive-aggressive counterpart to trump. if he is that religious and takes the bible that literally, how can he not stand up to a man who is an admitted sex offender? who has lied repeatedly and abused the office? if you read the transcript of that tape with ukraine, forget all the stuff in the mueller report he's guilty of abuse of power and the vice president clearly wants to be president so badly he will stand mute and

not say anything and not do anything because he is a republican first and aspires to the office way before he is an american. >> host: i will let you go into the story tom lobianco brought up, your mentioning as well, the reporting in the washington post late yesterday, trump involved pence in efforts to pressure ukraine's leader, he was unaware of the allegations in whistleblower complaints. >> guest: one thing i noticed is caricatures on both sides, he trying to push trump off the cliff? i don't see that happening. we have historical evidence to back that up. he had the opportunity to replace trump at the top of the ticket. that is not real. he didn't take that attempt. >> host: was that after the

billy bush incident? >> guest: access hollywood. to the caller's point of pence being an enabler, his faith is not real because of this, i try not to deal in absolutes because it is impossible to know and i tried to point this out in the book. on the one hand we have evangelical ministers who split with the christian right over that point, over trump coming in. you also have people in pence's orbit, advisors and friends, two biblical allegories that help explain why mike pence is there. how can he stand next to a philanderer like donald trump? here's the answer. one, he is daniel to trump's nebuchadnezzar in the old testament, keeping his people safe, acting as a cipher for god and also trying to keep the broader populace safe. or 2 a similar version, he is

joseph to trump's pharaoh and he is placed by god to keep everything on track. this also -- this tracks with the secular version you would hear from people occasionally about the adults in the room in the white house. that is how they view it. does it mean he agrees people should cheat on their wives and pay host money to porn stars? absolutely not but he is trying to do good. >> host: let's go to modesto, california, chris, independent line. >> caller: i am wondering if pence can be sucked into trump's orbit, lies, deception and cheating the government? >> host: you think there is a line in pence's character?

this is enough? >> guest: great question. i got the question a couple days ago too was there has to be some line we haven't seen yet because he is unflinchingly loyal to trump. we haven't crossed that line. a chance to personally interview him? guest: yes. i wish he would talk with us about him personally. one of my favorite interviews with him was about russell kirk. it is one of his favorite philosophers. he loves many books. a would go on vacation with russell kirk book under his arm. these kind of founder of modern conservatism. very big, a little academic, a little denser come certainly a conservative mind. one of his favorite books is a tough read. you might want to go with the cliff notes but it's all-encompassing. one of hisat old partners when

they were at a think tank back in early '90s he made a point to me, i love this, russell kirk would write that way and purpose to make it hard to get through because if you really wanted that information you would have to crack y to a lot of density. >> host: let's go to atlanta, democrat's line. >> caller: good morning. i really was confused by the person you are right now talking about mike pence and how it relates going on currently. is going to basically be in the same trap that donald trump is. he is involved in it. it is extortion, by their own words on their own telephone call. there is no doubt about that. they will be impeached. compared to be clinton's impeachment about sex and how republicans were firm about that but don't care about extortion, i am not sure.

tothe end of the day, i have shout out rich america. this is america. i get it. you want trump in the white house because he will continue to move money to their upper class. but, at what price? at what point, people don't know climate change is happening. kids, atetention of warspoint, with all the that will occur with the instability of north korea, at what point is there enough money that is not enough? i understand where the caller is. a lot of people feel that way.

>> host: want to play comments from president trump last week, general meeting an embedded patient that you the vice president terms of mike pence conversation with ukrainian president. >> impeachment for that? when you have a wonderful meeting or you have a wonderful phone conversation? i think you should ask, that was the second conversation i think you should ask for the first conversation also. i can't believe they haven't come i heard there's a rumor out there they want the first conversation. it was beautiful. it was just a perfect conversation -- >> awc family foundation fellowship at the herit