Vice President Mike Pence was headed to New Hampshire on Tuesday to deliver a speech on opioid addiction at a recovery center when the trip was suddenly canceled at the last moment.
Asked why Pence’s trip was abruptly called off, President Donald Trump said Friday he couldn’t talk about it but suggested that more details will come out “in about a week or two.”
“You’ll see in about a week or two”
The president stopped to answer questions from White House reporters before boarding Marine One to leave Washington D.C. for the weekend, and one of the many queries posed to him was in regard to the cancellation of Pence’s scheduled trip to New Hampshire.
“You’ll know in about two weeks,” Trump said. “There was a very — a very interesting problem that they had in New Hampshire. And I can’t tell you about it.”
“It was a very — but it had nothing to do with White House. There was a problem up there. And I won’t go into what the problem was, but you’ll see in about a week or two,” he added.
Not related to health, national security
The White House has been similarly tight-lipped about why Pence’s New Hampshire trip was scuttled at the last minute, just moments prior to the planned take off from Andrews Air Force Base for the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, according to a CNN report on Wednesday.
The lack of details provoked immediate speculation as to why the trip had been canceled. The fact that White House staffers reportedly didn’t know either only helped fuel the initial speculation that there had been some sort of medical emergency or a developing national security crisis.
A senior administration official quickly tamped down on the rumors, telling reporters on Tuesday, “This is not health related for the VP or President. Nothing related to national security.”
The prevailing message out of the White House was that there was no emergency and “no cause for alarm,” as the vice president’s office put it. Unnamed sources suggested there had been some sort of issue with the venue in Manchester, while others implied that the problem had been with one or more other attendees at the planned event.
Wait and see
Whatever the ultimate reason for the cancellation, it could very well have been significant, given the sudden change in plans.
Hopefully, as President Trump said in his remarks to reporters on Friday, we will all find out “in about a week or two” why the trip was called off at the last moment.
As for those who had gathered to hear the vice president speak on opioid abuse and take part in the event at the addiction recovery center, they have been asked to be patient as the planned event is expected to be rescheduled “very soon,” according to Pence’s press secretary.