Vice President Mike Pence was urgently summoned to the White House this morning, canceling a planned visit to New Hampshire. While the White House told the press that his plane had yet to depart for the event, other reports suggest that 'Air Force Two' was in the air before reversing direction and returning to Washington.
The White House downplayed the extraordinarily unusual move. A senior White House official told CNN that Pence's sudden summons "is not health related for the VP or President" and is not "related to national security." Pence chief of staff Marc Short told reporters it was also "not a personal or family issue" and that no firings are in the works.
And that, literally, appears to be all the Trump White House wants us to know. Not only is everything absolutely fine, though it required the cancellation of a long-planned trip and the immediate return of the vice president to the White House, but Pence's chief says we won't be hearing any explanation for, in his words, "weeks."
That's not going to happen, as this White House can't keep secrets of this magnitude for days, much less weeks. And we can take nothing from White House assurances that it is "not" this thing or that thing: They lie regularly and habitually. Speculation has mounted in recent weeks that Trump might remove Pence as his re-election running mate. Even if true, it would be extraordinarily cruel to recall the vice president from a long-planned speech to deliver that news.
So we don't know. But, no doubt, we soon will.