Pence Tells Newsmax: Trump and I Had an Amicable Parting

Former Vice President Mike Pence, despite the acrimony he has faced after his refusal to reject electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, said Friday on Newsmax that many people don’t realize that he and then-President Donald Trump “parted amicably,” even if he hasn’t spoken with Trump since spring of that year.

And, Pence told Newsmax’s “Wake Up America,” he expects to see Trump “down the road, maybe on a debate stage” as they fight each other for the GOP presidential nomination.

“I pray for the president and pray for his family,” Pence said. “I’m proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration.”

He added that on the day before they left office, Trump stood up behind his desk, “held his hand out, and said ‘you’ve done a great job.”

In the months that followed, however, Trump “returned to some of the same rhetoric suggesting that I had the authority to overturn the election, [and] I thought it’s best that we just went our separate ways.”

But now, he does think it’s important for Trump, the frontrunner in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, to come to the debates, answer tough questions, and lay out his vision. 

“My vision is grounded in the conservative ideals that have defined my life and defined our movement,” said Pence.  

And now that Labor Day has come and gone, Pence’s attention is on the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and he says he’s running for president because he thinks the country is in trouble under President Joe Biden. 

“I think Joe Biden has weakened America at home and abroad,” he said. “Everywhere I go, I see a determination among the American people to forge leadership for this country [that will] secure our border, revive our economy, and strengthen our nation in every way even as we defend our liberties and our most cherished values.”

Pence added that he sees a “real desire” for new leadership in the Republican Party, and the encouragement he’s seeing while he campaigns “has been very humbling for me.”

“I think increasingly, Republican voters are starting to look at not just who will be our standard bearer, but what we will run on,” said Pence. “I believe the majority of Republicans Independence of many Democrats want us to get back to those time-honored conservative principles that have defined our movement over the last 50 years and defined my career.”

He also insisted that in 2016, Trump promised that “we would govern as conservatives,” and when he was added to the ticket, that happened. 

“We stood with our allies and stood up to our enemies,” he said. “We rebuilt our military. We use military force to defend our interests and defend the interests of our allies around the world at home. We got the economy moving by letting people keep more of what they earned. We stood for the right to life, appointing three justices to the Supreme Court.”

But now, he thinks the country is “walking away” from its historic commitment to American leadership worldwide. 

“We’re walking away from a commitment of fiscal responsibility and even trying to marginalize the right to life,” said Pence. “I’m someone that’s going to stand strong on that conservative agenda, the agenda we governed on for four years, and it’s what I’ll do as president of the United States.”

Pence also insisted that despite Trump’s lead in the polls, he thinks the race for the nomination is “wide open.”

“Many other networks think that it’s just simply going to be a rematch of 2020, but I honestly think that voters know better than that,” he said. “Joe Biden’s policies have put an incredible burden on American families.”

Pence added that one of his goals is to work hard to make sure voters know who he is, even though his name is known after his vice presidency. 

“One of the things I’ve learned since the end of our administration is that I’m well known, but I’m not known,” said Pence. “Most people know me as that loyal vice president standing alongside the president until the day came that my oath to the Constitution required me to do otherwise. But what people may not know, but they’re learning more every day, I was a conservative governor in a state that balanced budgets and cut taxes in Congress for more than a decade. I was a House conservative leader before it was cool, and was fighting against big-spending Republicans…if I’m president, I’ll carry all those same conservative values.”

He also dismissed polls showing him trailing in the contest, telling Newsmax that his campaign ground report in Iowa “has me running pretty consistently second to the former president.”

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