Worse than Burr? Agnew? AFL-CIO boss calls Pence "second worst VP pick in history”

Aaron Burr

This morning Donald Trump officially named conservative Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate.

AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka, who is not on the Trump Train, quickly called Pence "the second worst vice presidential pick in history." The portly union leader, whose fat has clearly gone to his head, didn't say which veep pick was the worst.

But there have been some seriously horrible vice presidents. I'm not even going to dig into the nominees who didn't get the nod from the electorate.

Clearly, according to Trumka's ill-logic, Pence is worse than three of these four men.

Aaron Burr is the most famous American ever charged with murder. While vice president under Thomas Jefferson he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The homicide charges were later dropped. Burr was later charged with treason for attempting to form a new nation out of land from the Louisiana Purchase and Spanish possessions. He was acquitted.

John C. Breckinridge was the VP for arguably the worst American president in history, James Buchanan. He was one of two Democratic nominees for president in 1860, finishing a distant second to Abraham Lincoln in the electoral vote. After the Civil War broke out Breckinridge served as a general in the Confederate army even though his home state, Kentucky, remained loyal to the Union. He lived in self-imposed exile, fearing treason charges, until 1868 when Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, issued a general amnesty for all ex-Confederates.

Although Ulysses S. Grant was an honest man, his presidency was marred with scandal. His vice president, Schuyler Colfax, got a piece of the action in the Crédit Mobilier scandal; it's generally believed he accepted a bribe of cash and stocks in order to get legislation passed favorable to the building of the first transcontinental railroad.

Richard M. Nixon, the only president to resign, clearly broke the law when he obstructed justice in the early days of the Watergate scandal. His vice president, Spiro Agnew, was not involved in that scandal but he had his own deal on the side dating back to his time as governor of Maryland. Agnew accepted bribes from construction contractors. He pleaded no contest to bribery and tax evasion charges, part of his plea deal was to resign as vice president.

Okay, Trumka--is Pence really the "the second worst vice presidential pick in history."