How Mike Pence Is Preparing for Tuesday's Vice Presidential Debate

— -- Though Donald Trump boasted he hadn't spent much time getting ready for his first head-to-head debate with Hillary Clinton, his running mate Mike Pence is taking a different approach preparing for his own big night.

"I am doing a little preparation for it. And a little bit more traditional than my running mate," Pence told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt last week.

On Tuesday, the Republican vice presidential candidate will face his Democratic counterpart Tim Kaine on the debate stage for the first and only time of this election cycle.

According to a Pence aide, Pence has been preparing for the debate "since the night he received the call from Mr. Trump."

"The team has developed a plan and they are executing that plan," said the aide.

Pence said he had been "brushing up" on his years in Congress.

"For my part, my focus the last four years has been and continues to be on leading the state of Indiana. So, I've been brushing up on all those Washington issues I used to deal with full time when I was in Congress, but I'm looking forward to a good debate next week," he said on Hewitt's show.

Starting early last month, the Indiana governor had been reading obviously labelled "debate prep" binders aboard his campaign plane.

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He also did a number of mock debates, with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker standing in for Kaine, according to a Pence aide. Pence was in Wisconsin for two days last week and met with Walker then.

Walker later tweeted it had been a "honor" to help Pence "prepare for a thoughtful debate on the issues." Pence responded by tweeting Walker is “a true friend” and “great leader.”

A Pence aide said, "In each of his debate prep sessions, Governor Pence is thankful he is not having to debate Governor Walker next Tuesday."

On New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable" on Sunday, Walker said Pence’s goal during Tuesday's debate would be to “quickly dismiss” attacks on Trump, and then pivot to attacking Clinton.

“All the research I did to help Mike Pence out with Tim Kaine suggests to me that Sen. Kaine will be very decent. He’ll come across as a mild-mannered, nice guy. But in the end he’ll take shot after shot after shot at Donald Trump. Mike Pence’s job is to come in and quickly dismiss these attacks and quickly pivot to the problems of Hillary Clinton,” Walker said.

The Pence team has not commented on how involved the Trump team was (though Pence was in New York three times last week).

Pence had no public events in Indiana this weekend. An aide said he was spending time with family and "continuing informal debate prep."