Former Vice President Mike Pence announced Friday that he will not be endorsing his former boss Donald Trump to be president again, saying his conscience would not allow it.
Pence, who ended his own bid to the 2024 Republican nominee for president in October, told Fox News host Martha MacCallum, “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.
“Look, I’m incredibly proud of the record of our administration. It was a conservative record that made America more prosperous, more secure, and saw conservatives appointed to our courts in a more peaceful world,” he said.
“But that being said, during my presidential campaign I made it clear that there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues,” Pence said.
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He explained that those differences go beyond his decision to not support Trump’s push to delay certifying the 2020 election results.
Trump believed Pence had the authority, in his role as president of the Senate, to not certify the Electoral College so that claims of election fraud in some swing states — like Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — could be further investigated by state legislatures.
Pence disagreed, and the two went their separate ways after leaving office in January 2021.
🚨 BREAKING: Mike Pence says he will not endorse Donald Trump in 2024.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 15, 2024
Should Pence have endorsed Trump?
The vice president told MacCallum that he has current policy disagreements with Trump, including what he characterized as an unwillingness to confront the growing national debt, as well as the 45th president “shying” away from protecting the lives of the unborn.
The Hill reported at a Fox News town hall last month, Trump said that he hasn’t decided yet at what point in the pregnancy that he could support a prohibition when it comes to abortions.
“The number 15 [weeks] is mentioned. I haven’t agreed to any number; I’m going to see. We want to take an issue that was very polarizing and get it settled and solved so everybody can be happy,” he said.
Trump also pointed out, “We got it back to the states where it belongs. A lot of states are taking very strong stances,” referring to state laws passed after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in the summer of 2022.
At the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee in February, Trump touted his pro-life record.
“From my first day in office, I took historic action to protect the unborn, like nobody has ever done,” he said. “I was able to bring this issue for the first time in 54 years back to the states where everybody agrees, on both sides … that’s where it should be.”
Trump argued that Republicans need to make the case that Democrats are the radicals when it comes to abortion policy, particularly with their support for late term abortion.
“Because nobody believes after a certain period of time, nobody believes that you should be doing this,” he said.
“We also have to remember that we have to have people elected, so some things that you feel, and you have to go with your heart … but you have to get elected, you have to get people elected,” Trump contended, in an apparent nod to the red wave that did materialize in the 2022 midterms, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling.
Pence stated that on some of these key issues Trump “is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years.
“And that’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign,” he said.
When questioned who he would be voting for, Pence responded that he wanted to keep his vote private, but did offer that he would never vote for Biden.
Asked if he would be running as a third party candidate, the former vice president answered, “I am a Republican.”
