President Donald Trump on Monday met with Mark Penn, who advised former President Bill Clinton during his impeachment battle, who presented Trump with polling data and advice on impeachment, The Washington Post reports.
Penn spent more than an hour in the Oval Office on Monday, where he told the president that he wouldn’t be forced from office and advised him to spend time traveling around the country the way Clinton did during the 90’s, according to three people who were familiar with the meeting, which also including Vice President Mike Pence and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Penn had been escorted to the meeting by Andrew Stein, former Democratic New York City Council President and one of Trump’s longtime friends, who recently argued in The Wall Street Journal that Pence should be replaced with former Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley in 2020. Stein said on Tuesday that he “buried the hatchet” with the vice president over the course of the meeting.
“I told Pence, the president wants him on the ticket and that’s that,” he told the Post.
According to Stein, Penn told the president to “stay focused on the substance,” of the accusations against him regarding Ukraine, “and not respond to everything.”
He also told Trump, “you’ve got to govern,” and spoke about how Clinton had acted during his impeachment, according to an unnamed person with knowledge of the meeting.