I’d like a little light reading.
Here you go. “Times when the Vice President was important.”
Congress is in recess this week. Unless Senators all start getting on planes to head back to DC there’s no vote in the Senate that needs tie-breaking. There’s not a whole lot of benefit trying to do something sneaky during the recess either. For a Senate only action they’d have to be getting around strong Republican opposition to something like confirming an appointment.
Just because the shooting in the geographic region isn’t thought to be an issue doesn’t mean VP security isn’t the root cause. If there’s a credible threat to the VP that the Secret Service doesn’t feel they can reliably stop they might not want to say that’s the cause. As much as the rest of us might want to know, they don’t want the threat to know that they may have been discovered.
For major covert operations, like say military strikes that we won’t announce until after the fact, the “Gang of Eight” need to be briefed by law. That’s the ranking member of each party from both the Senate and House. The other four are the chair and ranking minority member of the Senate and House intelligence committees. With the recess on their locations matter for assessing what’s going on. They don’t necessarily have to go DC but they aren’t calling into that highly classified teleconference from their car on the way to a campaign event. At a minimum we’d expect them to have to travel to the nearest location with a SCIF (Secret Compartmented Information Facility.) Depending on their recess schedules that might show up in cancellations.
There could be a non-life threatening health issue that still requires appointing Pence as acting President for a couple hours to a couple days. Something as simple as Trump tripping and breaking his arm badly enough that he needs surgery could have Pence delegated as Acting President under the 25th Amendment. We’re wouldn’t necessarily announce that transition in advance. Sometimes we do though. Given the tension with Iran keeping Pence around DC for that might make sense.
That first sentence is applicable for most of the last couple of years. 
I’d missed the major sortie or package of sorties though. Thanks.
There was a cryptic response from Marc Short, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States:
All of this brouhaha today made me think, can you imagine if we had the Web and social media during the Cold War? The 80s, and the seemingly daily crises in Europe, the MidEast, shooting down airliners, etc…? It was exciting enough, having to wait for Peter Jennings or Ted Koppel to tell us what happened.
What sort of issue involving the VP takes “weeks from now” before we can be plausibly lied to?
Somebody accidentally left Pence alone in a room with alcohol.
It’s back to rehab and daily lashings by Mrs.Pence.
He may have accidentally drunk a ginger ale, which, compounded by the fact he was drinking on a plane, might have left him feeling light-headed and queasy. If so, I wouldn’t be surprised if he staggered out of the plane upon landing dishevelled and partially-clothed, leaving behind a trashed cabin, while singing lewd songs about Mary Magdalene.
“We’ll see in a week or two” is Trump-speak for “I don’t know what you’re talking about and/or don’t have a good answer, so I’m going to stall and hope that you forget about this”.
So, it seems we have no idea at all. Maybe a family emergency.
Just spitballing: the Prez has been diagnosed with a fast cancer, it’s terminal, and the Veep will be president six weeks from now.
Not saying that is the case or anything, but that fits the question.
I would guess Trump issued some random order for Pence to implement.
I would like the reason to be an emergency Article 25 meeting.
Damn. I would have loved to see Mike Pence on opioids!
He might even believe in God.
This is my suspicion, based on the responses from the White House.
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A health scare would not surprise me however. To his credit Mr Trump does not drink or smoke. However he is in his early 70s, obese, apparently lives on McDonalds, and other than golf does not exercise. All that and the insane stress and travel required of the job plus possible mental issues can’t be good for the constitution.
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It isn’t good for the Constitution, either.
Assuming this ended up being nothing, this event needs to go in the book about this period in our history, to show on edge people are that a minor PR event being rescheduled resulted in a day-long tizzy. (And also to show how incompetent the White House communications staff is, that they let some bogus story about Air Force Two turning around mid-air linger for hours.)
It can’t be a coincidence that Pence diverted back to Washington after the Russian sub explosion.
I have no idea why he was needed, but we don’t know his role at the WH. Maybe Trump relies on his foreign policy suggestions?
Trump would never admit that he takes advice from anybody. 
What he actually does in private is a whole nother thing.
He didn’t divert “back to Washington.” He never left Washington. Edit: He was on the plane at Andrews Air Force Base, but it never took off.
Perhaps Trump didn’t want his VP traveling to early Primary state New Hampshire. I have read that Trump doesn’t fully trust Pence. I could see his paranoia focusing on Pence and a suspicion that he might make a bid to wrest their party’s nomination away from the Prez.
Maybe Agent Orange has been deactivated by the Ruskies? :eek: