Donald Trump and Mike Pence are “philosophically” on the same page when it comes to how to handle the crisis in Syria, a top Republican Party official said Wednesday, downplaying the notion of a split between the two.
Sean Spicer, communications director for the Republican National Committee, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” that despite using different words to outline their foreign policy plans for the civil war torn country the two running mates are in sync.
“If Russia chooses to be involved and continued to be involved on this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets in the Assad regime to prevent them from this humanitarian crisis that is taking place in Aleppo,” Pence said during Tuesday’s debate.
“This is the completely opposite of what Donald Trump says,” Blitzer told Spicer. “Donald Trump doesn’t go there.”
Spicer said: “I think what Mike Pence said is you shouldn’t take military options off the table … Philosophically they’re clearly on the same page. As I mentioned, I think Gov. Pence last night went into more detail as far as the crisis there goes.”
“I don’t know how many times people can go in and try to nitpick the position. Gov. Pence made it very clear last night that he and Donald Trump are 100% aligned on this,” he said, adding that Trump’s campaign doesn’t go into details about military strategy with opponents so as not to reveal their plans.
“We leave everything on the table so we relieve the maximum options available to us,” he said.
And when asked about whether Trump has paid federal income taxes, Spicer said he was “probably the last person that Donald Trump is going to share his taxes with.”
“But obviously his son Eric made that statement to (CNN’s Dana Bash), and you can take him at his word,” he said.
Trump’s son, Eric, said in a Tuesday night interview that his father paid a “tremendous amount of tax.”
“There’s a lot of talk tonight about federal income taxes. Can you just put this to rest? Has your father paid federal income taxes?” Bash had asked Trump.
“We pay a tremendous amount of taxes,” Eric Trump had said.
“Federal income taxes?” Bash asked.
“Yes,” Trump said.