Former Vice -President Mike Pence Positions itself as a “constructive force for the conservative agenda” during the second term of President Donald Trump as one of the few Republicans who want to challenge him.
“Well, for me it is always principles first. It’s not personal,” Pence said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Despite the public with Trump in the Wake of the January 6, 2021, Riot At the American Capitool, Pence said that he would support the new Trump administration about issues with which he agreed, but would challenge others.
The political interest group of Pence, Advancing American Freedom, spent almost $ 1 million in advertisements against Trump’s newly confirmed health and human service secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Former vice -president Mike Pence during the 60th presidential inauguration in the Rotunda of the American Capitol on January 20, 2025. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The former Vice President said that he and those who work for him received “a lot of calm encouragement” in opposite Kennedy. Pence described it necessary to talk about finding the nomination of a supporter of abortion rights to be secretary of HHS as a dramatic departure of 50 years of strong pro-life leadership at HHS under Republican administrations. ”
Asked why Republicans may be reluctant to publicly resist Trump, Pence said: “I never speculate about motifs. You know, I am not new in the city. I have previously had lonely fights.”
“But you know, you must be willing to get out and lead,” said the former Vice President. “I hope that when the next issue of life comes up, people will be encouraged, encouraged to know that they are not alone.”
Regarding the nomination of RFK Jr., the progress of American freedom President Tim Chapman told Fox News Digital that the group believed: “It would be a distance of duty and responsibility if no one said anything about the life problem in particular, lets are some other worries ”
“I think it is more likely now that he is better in life than when we had not tackled the issue at all,” said Chapman. “Being a part of being constructive is the weighing and a market signal when the administration or republican leadership could try to go in a direction that is not bound by conservative principles. And so you are not always going to win all those fights. And in fact , We don’t even see it as our task to win all those fights.
In the second Trump -Chapman claimed: “There is a much stronger echo room on the outside that is currently encouraging and sometimes, you know, more than encouraging republicans and external groups to stay in line with the administration.” He said it “creates an atmosphere where some people who do not disagree with a candidate or with a policy decision choose to force their time and not to make that disagreement public.”
“Time will learn whether that environment will remain permanent and will also tell time whether that ultrasound room serves the president or does not serve him well. For various reasons we do not feel the pressure of that echo room to remain silent if we are not even,” ” Chapman told Fox News Digital. “We will do our best to constructively, you know how to make our points. And if we disagree, try to draw the administration in the direction of our opinion about policy. But then you know, if we agree with it are completely next to them and try to help them push their priorities over the finish line. ”
Promoting American freedom is now lobbying against Lori Chavez-Degreemer, Trump’s choice for Labor Secretary, who accuses her of Pro-Union. While Pence’s group intends to urge the military expenses in the coming months, to reduce the shortage and make the tax reductions of Trump 2017 permanent, and Trump tries to convince to stop implementing rates for allies , the former vice -president and those who work for him insists that they do not assume the “never Trump” cloak.
Pence has given speeches to encourage Trump to stand with long -standing strange allies and lobby members of the congress, while his assistants write letters and opinion columns. Promoting American Freedom says they intend to praise the administration when they agree, while they are worried when they do not, and argue for long -term conservative principles that they believe have taken a backseat to Trump’s Make America Great Again brand of populism.
“We call balls and strikes here,” Pence told the AP. “I think the way we want to approach this, with integrity is to principle. And I am very encouraged. I think and the policy we had negotiated and established that the limit had negotiated and established.”
Pence said he believes that “some of the prominent voices in the party have embraced more populist thinking”, but that “the vast majority of people who once voted Republican thinks differently than they thought during our administration when we have a conservative agenda or The years before or since. ”
President-Elect Donald Trump greets former vice-president Mike Pence at the State Funeral for former President Jimmy Carter in the Washington National Cathedral on January 9, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty images)
Despite the farmer who said he agreed with “absolutely everything” about “strong American support for Israel, strong American leadership in the world, continuous support for Ukraine in their struggle and limited government and reforms about it To bring our fiscal house in order and right to live, “the former vice president remembered how the farmer said he could not vote for him in 2024 and that” I had to be for Trump this time. ”
“And he goes,” but I’ll see you in four years. You will someday be a great president, “said Pence, who briefly chased The Gop -Presidential nomination of 2024. “I said,” Would you like to tell me, you know, why? ” And he said I was in fact: he complained the failed record of Biden.
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“So in this last election I saw a Republican party that embraced a major government or a vision to withdraw from the commitments of America on the world stage or to marginalize the right to life,” Pence told the AP. “I didn’t see that traveling throughout the country and I still don’t see it. I think there were other factors that gave the former president a definite advantage of the elections. He had earned it. He had won it.
In his interview with Fox News Digital, Chapman agreed. “I think he has seen first -hand, and we have all traveled who have traveled the country, if you look at Republican voters and what they only believe about the issues, there is not much change going on in the party,” ” Said Chapman. “The average Republican voter still feels very strong about the limited government, feels very strong about traditional values ​​and about reducing the left, you know, progressive attack on traditional values ​​and feels very strong about a strong national defense. As if this baseline -Concepts are for conservative voters that have not been changed in any way, shape or shape. ”
“Many of the reasons they wanted to go back Trump were because of how successful the first Trump administration was about those issues,” he continued. “The policy set has not changed … There was a reaction to the outdoor handy Lawfare from the left and out of hand to cancel the culture and that Trump was seen as the object thereof. And so there was a whole, very natural and very honest , commendable instinction of the American people and republican voters to say, you know what?
Pence told the AP that he went to Trump’s inauguration last month and “was very moved in the outpouring of friendly words and expressions of appreciation of former colleagues, including many members of the new administration that I encountered in corridors.” When he saw Trump’s new State Secretary, Marco Rubio, Pence said he gave him a hug and “told him how proud I was of him.”
“We praised him from here when he was selected,” Pence told the AP. “I must have seen or communicate about half of the incoming cabinet.”
At the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, Pence said he has a “Very cordial exchange” with Trump. When Trump came in the first row of the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, Pence remembered that he said, “Hello, Mike.” Pence said that he went out his hand to Trump and said, “Congratulations, Mr. President” and “I could see his face softly. And he said,” Thank you. “” Pence said he also congratulated Lady Melania Trump.
Al Gore, Mike Pence and Karen Pence are behind Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush, Barack Obama and Donald and Melania Trump during the state -burial for former President Jimmy Carter. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty images)
“You know, the people who know me know it is not personal,” Pence told the AP. “I have long forgiven the president for any differences we had at the end of our administration. We still have those differences, since the president still has the opinion that, as far as I know, I had an authority that I did not have prayed for the president under the constitution or laws.
The AP also asked Pence for the viral moment at the funeral in which his wife, former Second Lady Karen Pence, refused to recognize President-Elect Trump or to shake the hand of Melania Trump.
“My wife loves her husband. And I love my wife and I have a lot of respect for her. And so – but I am really moved about how many people throughout the country thank us both for that day,” Pence said. “But again, you know, I want to emphasize, we are eyes forward here. You know, I always thought that the president would come to the position he took on January 6.”
In his book, Pence said, he describes how he and Trump ‘actually separated on very amicable conditions, very good conditions’, but in the spring, when Trump’ returned to the rhetoric about how I could have done something that nor the Neither the Constitution nor the Constitution could have the law would ever allow a vice president, then I just decided it was important to go our own way. ”
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“But hope jumps forever,” Pence said. “And we want to be a constructive force for the conservative agenda. I think that is good for the administration. It’s good for the congress. What is even more important is good for America.”
Chapman repeated to Fox News Digital that Pence’s work was not personally in nature during Trump’s second term, pointing back to Pence when he served in the congress “was often a lonely voice, you know, agitating against Republican leadership for a course correction for a More conservative vision to rule. ”
“What you see doing now is almost a return to form,” said Chapman. “So I definitely think there is nothing personal.”
The Associated Press has contributed to this report.
