Mike Pence Sunday blasted the hypocrisy of critics of President-elect Donald Trump phone call with the Taiwanese president – saying President Barack Obama was hailed as a hero for reaching out to Cuba's "murdering dictator."
In an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press," the vice president-elect said "the waters here seem like a little bit of a tempest in a tea pot."
"It's striking that President Obama would reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba and be hailed as a hero and President-elect Trump takes a courtesy call from a democratically elected president of Taiwan and it becomes something of a thing in the media."
The 10-minute phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen ignited controversy for upending the complex relationships between the United States, mainland China, and the self-governing island China regards as a renegade province.
Pence, in his interview, even referred to Tsai as "the president of Taiwan" – an apparent breach of the nation's current foreign policy.
"The conversation that happened this week with the president of Taiwan was a courtesy call," Pence said. " She reached out to the president-elect and he took the call from the democratically elected leader of Taiwan. It's one of more than 50 telephone calls that the president-elect has taken from and made to world leaders in the midst of a historic pace and cabinet appointments and senior appointments, building a legislative agenda, even traveling the country and saving 1,000 jobs in Indiana."
"It's all a reflection of the energy and I think it's the kind of approach that you are going to see him bring to challenges at home and abroad," he added.
" I would say to our counterparts in China that this was a moment of courtesy," he added. "The president-elect talked to the [Chinese] president two weeks ago in the same manner."
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