Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served alongside former President Donald Trump for 4 years, has refused to endorse his former boss as he appears to be like virtually sure to seize the Republican presidential nomination within the 2024 presidential election.
Pence, who clashed with Trump after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots through which a gaggle of the previous president's supporters stormed the US Capitol as Congress ready to debate the certification of the president's votes within the 2020 election, mentioned who he plans to vote for in 2024 presidential election, in an look on Fox Information' “The Story” Friday. Pence briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination final yr earlier than turning into the primary main candidate to withdraw final October.
When host Martha MacCallum requested Pence if he deliberate to endorse Trump, the previous vice chairman replied, “It ought to come as no shock that I can’t be endorsing Donald Trump this yr.
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Whereas he mentioned he was “extremely proud” of the report of the Trump and Pence administrations, which he described as “a conservative report that has made America extra affluent, safer, and conservatives appointed to our courts and a extra peaceable world,” he famous that the “deep variations” amongst them in “a sequence of issues” prevented him from supporting the previous president.
Pence insisted {that a} distinction of opinion about his “constitutional duties” to preside over the certification of presidential election outcomes as vice chairman was only one such distinction that prevented him from endorsing Trump. “I've been following the event of his candidacy,” Pence mentioned. “I’ve seen him stroll away from our dedication to sort out the nationwide debt. I noticed him start to shirk his dedication to the sanctity of human life.”
Pence's remarks in regards to the former president's views on the sanctity of human life check with feedback Trump made throughout a September 2023 interview through which he known as the six-week abortion ban signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who additionally ran for president earlier than he left earlier this yr, “a horrible factor.” The previous vice chairman additionally bemoaned Trump's “turnaround on getting robust on China and supporting our administration's effort to drive the sale of ByteDance's TikTok.”
The Republican-controlled U.S. Home of Representatives overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Defending People from International Advocacy Managed Apps Act, which seeks to “defend the nationwide safety of the US from the risk posed by apps managed by international adversaries, corresponding to TikTok and any successor app or service and some other software or service developed or supplied by ByteDance Ltd. or an entity managed by ByteDance Ltd,” in a 352-65 vote final week.
Most Republicans and Democrats alike supported the measure, which makes it “unlawful for an entity to distribute, keep, or replace (or enable to be up to date) an software managed by a international adversary,” corresponding to TikTok, until it has break up from its Chinese language communist counterpart. Social gathering-affiliated mum or dad firm ByteDance. Trump rejected the TikTok ban in a March 7 put up on social media platform Fact Social.
“If you happen to eliminate TikTok, Fb and Zuckerschmuck will double their enterprise,” he wrote, referring to the social media platform's CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “I don't need Fb, which cheated within the final election, to do higher. They’re the true enemy of the individuals!”
Pence cited his former boss's stances on the nationwide debt, abortion and TikTok as examples of how “Donald Trump is pushing and articulating an agenda that’s at odds with the conservative agenda that we've had throughout our 4 years in workplace, and that's why I can’t in good conscience help Donald Trump Trump on this marketing campaign.” The previous vice chairman additionally hinted that he would “by no means vote for Joe Biden,” including, “How I vote when the curtain closes … that's going to be for me.”
Nonetheless, Pence didn’t fully shut the door on electing Trump, pushing apart the concept he would endorse or run as a third-party candidate, telling MacCallum that he would “preserve my vote for himself.” He promised to spend the remainder of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign speaking about “what we must be about,” particularly referring to the “broad, mainstream conservative agenda that has outlined our social gathering and that has at all times made America robust, affluent, and free.”
“I’ll put my vitality into ensuring that my fellow Republicans, independents and lots of, many Democrats throughout the nation know that it is a dedication to restricted authorities and the Structure, a dedication to a robust protection and American management. on the earth, a dedication to the standard values which have at all times made this nation affluent and free, and I’ll rise up for that,” he added.
Pence shouldn’t be the primary of Trump's former rivals within the 2024 Republican main to say no to endorse the presumptive nominee. Former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley dropped her help for the previous president after he dropped out of the race earlier this month, whereas former New Jersey governor Chris Christie remained crucial of Trump after he suspended his marketing campaign earlier this month. yr.
Trump is predicted to face off in a rematch in opposition to Biden within the fall. The previous president has supplied a number of choices as potential candidates, however Pence, who ran with him in 2016 and 2020, shouldn’t be amongst them.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Publish. He will be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
