As for Vice President Mike Pence, the fellow Hoosier and good friend of Coats who brought him into the administration, Coats believed he had built a cocoon around himself and become passive, subservient and obedient, Woodward writes. Pence encouraged Coats to “look on the positive side of things” that Trump has done.
The book describes Marsha Coats confronting Pence at a White House dinner after something outrageous had happened.
“And I just looked at him, like, how are you stomaching this?” Marsha Coats is quoted as saying. “And he just whispered in my ear, ‘Stay the course.’”
It had been Marsha Coats who – along with Pence – had convinced a reluctant Coats to take the job after leaving the Senate at the end of 2016, according to the book.
Dan Coats had concluded that Pence was trying to seed the cabinet with allies, people who shared his religious values, and agreed to be nominated, Woodward writes.
It wasn’t long, however, before Coats began to think that Trump was impervious to facts.
Have Bolton and Coats ever been seen in the same room together?
Is Coats just Bolton without the Capn Crunch mustache?
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/dan-coats-resigning-mike-pence/2019/03/26/id/908713/
Report: Pence Talked Dan Coats Out of Resigning
26 March 2019
Pence is reportedly Coats’ closest ally in the administration. And NBC News reported the relationship between Coats and the president has stabilized for now.
Pence is said to have convinced Coats that leaving the administration so soon after Mattis would be viewed as a major upheaval in the Trump team. The network news attributed its information to current and former senior administration officials.
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article133408949.html
FEBRUARY 21, 2017
Pence helped Trump fill key appointments with those he was close to, including Dan Coats, nominated to be director of national intelligence, who was a senator from Indiana; Seema Verma, selected to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, who had advised Pence on health care when he was governor; and Marc Short, leader of the Legislative Affairs Office, who served as a longtime top adviser to Pence.
Crazy talk from Woodward. All of it. Coats no doubt did great harm to the MAGA agenda while DNI.