President Donald Trump will succeed by delivering on his 2016 campaign promises, not sweating the polls, Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday night on “The Ingraham Angle.”

Trump’s approval rating has been mired under 40 percent in most surveys. But the vice president reminded Fox News host Laura Ingraham that most polls also suggested Trump would lose the 2016 election — and said Trump will continue doing things like passing historic tax cuts.

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“One of the enduring lessons for me of election 2016 was ‘Don’t believe the polls,'” Pence said. “I don’t remember a poll that had us anywhere close to winning, and President Trump won a historic victory … If the president was sitting here, what he’d say to you is, ‘We’re just going to keep delivering. They’re going to keep talking, they’re going to keep resisting; we’re gonna keep delivering.'”

It is not just Trump who faces grim poll numbers. Surveys indicate the tax plan itself is also unpopular with varying majorities of Americans. Pence said the administration has to sell the merits, but he added that doing so will be much easier when withholding levels begin to change in workers’ paychecks.

“When the American people start to see more in their paychecks in February, they’re going to start to realize that the president’s vision here, that this middle-class miracle that was passed today by the Congress, is an idea whose time has come,” said Pence. “And I really do believe that this is going to sell itself.”

Pence added that Trump believes lower taxes and more economic activity will lead to growth that exceeds projections.

The soon-to-be law slashes the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, cuts taxes for businesses that are not incorporated, and reduces individual tax rates in all brackets. It also doubles the child tax credit, kills Obamacare’s individual mandate, and opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to energy exploration and production.

Pence rejected criticism that the tax cuts will add more than $1 trillion to the debt. “The estimates of deficits here are all based on some pretty predictable, you know, growth estimates going forward,” he said.

Pence added that Trump believes lower taxes and more economic activity will lead to growth that exceeds projections.

Trump and GOP Triumph as Historic Tax Cuts Approved

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The vice president sidestepped questions about independent counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the 2016 campaign and did not take the bait when Ingraham invited him to criticize the former FBI director’s team. That team includes a number of lawyers who have made political contributions to Democrats and are linked in relationships that strongly suggest improper bias in decision-making.

“It’s just not been a focus of mine or of this president,” Pence said, adding that the White House will continue to cooperate with Mueller but will not obsess over the probe. “We’ll let the special counsel do their job and continue to focus on our job. I think that’s exactly what the American people want us to do.”

Pence made clear the administration will concentrate on policy. He said after tax cuts, Trump will move on to welfare reform and rebuilding America’s roads and bridges.

“It’s humbling for me to be a part of it, and we’re just getting started,” he said.

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.