Mike Pence campaign events just vanished from Donald Trump's website
Which way will he go?
A lineup of campaign events for Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence disappeared from the web Saturday amid the turmoil of Donald Trump's leaked-tape scandal.
Trump's site, donaldjtrump.com, usually carries a heavy lineup of appearances by the Indiana governor, who has publicly refused to defend the GOP nominee's crass remarks about women as revealed Friday on a 2005 hot-mic recording.
The deeply conservative Pence distanced himself from Trump after the Washington Post unearthed a graphic Access Hollywood clip of the presidential hopeful saying his fame imbued him with the power to do anything with women, up to and including "grab them by the pussy."
In a statement, Pence said that as a husband and father, he could neither condone nor defend Trump's self-described "locker room banter."
"This is definitely some signaling going on from Pence world to the outside," a GOP insider told Mic, "and I think [the fact] that he's off the schedule is him protesting, is him saying 'I'm not going to play this game [and be] the ambassador to the civilized world.'"
The Trump campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the online changeup.
Pence, who served in Congress before his election as governor of the Hoosier State, declined to appear in his nominee's stead at a Saturday event with House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin.
The former radio talk show host, who has described himself as "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order," initially endorsed Trump's GOP primary rival Ted Cruz.
Pence was reportedly appalled by the new revelation of Trump's misogynistic leaked banter about trying to "fuck" a married woman.
This isn't the first time Pence has declined to fall on the sword of Trump's track record.
During this week's vice presidential debate against Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine, Pence repeatedly refused to stand up for some of the Manhattan mogul's more distasteful rhetoric.
Trump's latest snafu has cost him the financial support of the GOP and some of its prominent members — and has fueled talk about Pence potentially ascending to the top of the ticket in his place.
That seems unlikely by several measures.
The Republican insider who spoke to Mic Saturday snarked that those pushing the idea of a Trump-Pence switcheroo were engaging in nothing more than a "Beltway fantasy jerking-off session."
Later Saturday, the site updated to list two Pence appearances in North Carolina for Monday.
Oct. 8, 2016, 6:36 p.m.: This story has been updated.
