VP Debate Moderator Page Hosted Party Honoring Pence Protg Verma
very fishy discovery that the moderator for next month’s vice-presidential candidate debate, veteran journalist (now with USA Today) Susan Page, hosted a party late in 2018 in honor of Mike Pence’s powerful protégé Seema Verma, who runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the Trump administration.
The party, dubbed a “girl’s night,” came to light as part of a U.S. House report (made public by Politico) on pretty heavy taxpayer-subsidized spending by organizer and Republican public relations type Pam Stevens as part of an effort to raise Verma’s profile or improve her brand or whatever euphemism for aggrandizement of the already-powerful you prefer. Turns out Page, not John Q. Public, paid the four grand or so for Verma’s party, but perhaps Stevens separately billed the feds for her consulting work on the event. In any event, the controversy isn’t really about who paid for the party, but whether a working journalist at Page’s level who has been hobnobbing with Mike Pence’s best-known associate in the Trump administration ought to be moderating his debate with Kamala Harris. Matt Yglesias thinks the answer is clearly “no.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/veep-debate-moderator-hosted-dinner-honoring-pence-protg.html
How did this snake in the grass get picked to moderate this debate, she's a pencer.
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