Category Archives: Mike Pence

Mike Pence will not endorse Trump, but will not rule out voting for him

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Former vice-president says he ‘respects the right’ of Republicans who plan to vote for the ex-president

Two days after saying he would not endorse a second Donald Trump presidency, former vice-president Mike Pence on Sunday declared his esteem for fellow Republicans who plan to vote for his former boss anyway – and he declined to rule out eventually following suit.

Pence reiterated on CBS’s Face the Nation that he “cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump” in November’s election for a number of policy-related decisions that he insisted were not personal between him and the former president whose supporters chanted for Pence to be hanged publicly as they attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

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The search for Trump’s running mate: ‘like auditions for The Apprentice’

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At issue is whether potential vice-presidents, from Elise Stefanik to Tim Scott, could assume control – and whether Trump cares

The last person who occupied the job of US vice-president ended up the target of a violent mob calling for him to be hanged. Even so, as Donald Trump closes in on the Republican nomination for 2024, there is no shortage of contenders eager to be his deputy.

It is safe to assume that Mike Pence, who was Trump’s running mate in 2016 and 2020, will not get the job this time. His refusal to comply with his boss’s demand to overturn the last election caused a permanent rift and made Pence a perceived traitor and target of the January 6 insurrectionists.

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‘We will never go away’: anti-abortion activists meet in Washington to plan further bans

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Abortion opponents are emboldened by the fall of Roe, but many states have enacted protections after ruling

Mike Pence had a message: always vote against abortion rights – even if, he suggested, that means voting for Donald Trump.

“That’s why we have primaries. We sort ’em out at every level. But after the primary’s over, you vote pro-life,” the former Republican vice-president to Trump told a downtown Washington DC ballroom of young, diehard anti-abortion activists on Saturday. “You go get behind men and women who are going to stand for the right to life.”

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Special counsel to disclose Trump’s phone data at election interference trial

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Filing suggests experts could connect former president’s tweets with the movements of January 6 rioters who stormed the Capitol

Special counsel prosecutors indicated on Monday they will call three expert witnesses at Donald Trump’s trial over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election who could potentially show how January 6 rioters moved on the Capitol in response to the former president’s tweets.

The witnesses, according to a three-page filing, involve two experts on geolocation data to show the crowd’s movement during and after Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, and an expert on cellular phone data to testify about when and how Trump’s phone was being used, including over the same time period.

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Pence’s son reportedly convinced him to stand up to Trump over January 6

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Former vice-president had planned to skip process to certify Joe Biden’s election victory but changed mind after son’s plea

Mike Pence reportedly decided to skip the congressional certification process for Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, because to preside over it as required by the constitution would be “too hurtful” to his “friend”, Donald Trump. He was then shamed into standing up to Trump by his son, a US marine.

“Dad, you took the same oath I took,” the then vice-president’s son Michael Pence said, according to ABC News, adding that it was “an oath to support and defend the constitution”.

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Mike Pence’s exit from White House bid is winnowing of crowded field, rivals say

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Departure could help Republican candidates but DeSantis and Haley, as well as Ramaswamy and Christie, still hugely trail Trump

Mike Pence’s surprise withdrawal from the Republican presidential nomination race on Saturday is part of natural winnowing of the crowded field, rivals of the former vice-president said Sunday – and one that could help their quest of candidates to wrestle the nomination from overwhelming frontrunner Donald Trump.

“In the end, the race is narrowing, which everyone said it would,” said former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics and one of four who have qualified for a third TV debate next month in Miami that may not have included Pence, who, he told CNN’s State of the Union, had run “a tough race, a good race”.

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Mike Pence suspends campaign for Republican presidential nomination

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The former vice-president to Donald Trump says that after prayer and deliberation he concludes ‘it is not my time’

Mike Pence, the former vice-president under Donald Trump, has suspended his campaign to become the Republican nominee for president in the 2024 election.

Pence announced at an event held by the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Saturday that he was dropping out of the race, in which he has been lagging, along with others, far behind frontrunner Trump.

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AOC accuses Republicans of fabricating Biden impeachment evidence – live

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Ocasio-Cortez also noted the witnesses were under oath, while the lawmakers on the panel could say what they want – including lies

The House oversight committee is about to hold its first hearing in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, the latest step in a months-long effort investigating the president and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings that has yet to produce substantial evidence of wrongdoing.

Today’s hearing, titled The Basis for an Impeachment Inquiry of President Joseph R Biden Jr, comes two weeks after House speaker Kevin McCarthy launched the inquiry in response to demands from hard-right members of the House Republican conference.

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Republican contenders gather for key debate with Trump again absent

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Seven candidates face off at Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California, with Republican frontrunner again choosing to skip

Seven Republican presidential contenders gathered in California on Wednesday night for the second primary debate of the 2024 election season, but the absence of Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in the race for the party’s nomination, again loomed large over the event.

Seven candidates qualified for the second debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. Those candidates were Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and the North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.

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Republican debate live: eight presidential hopefuls take stage as Trump is a no-show

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Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy take stage in Milwaukee

Onstage at the Republican presidential debate tonight is the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum – who almost didn’t make it.

He has managed to make the event despite requiring crutches and wearing a boot after hurting his Achilles tendon while playing basketball.

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Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows seeks emergency order to protect him from arrest in Georgia – as it happened

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The Fulton county district attorney has advised several of Donald Trump’s co-defendants that they should surrender at the jail around 3am ET if they want a quick turnaround on their booking because it could take hours during the day, per people familiar.

Expect some surrenders in early hours.

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Pence won’t say if criminal conviction should rule Trump out as president

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Former vice-president who once voted to expel felon from Congress says American people should decide

Donald Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, refused to say Trump should be barred from returning to the White House if he is convicted on any of 91 criminal charges against him.

“I think that he’s to be left to the American people,” Pence told ABC’s This Week, on Sunday. “Let’s have the former president have his day in court. Let’s maintain a presumption of innocence.”

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Previously unseen memo details Trump plot to subvert election results – report

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Memo obtained by New York Times describes three-pronged plan to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory on 6 January 2020

A previously unseen internal memo from the 2020 Trump campaign describes in detail the plot by Donald Trump and his lawyers to subvert election results in six states, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.

The memo describes a three-pronged plan to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory on 6 January 2020, that involved coordinating with Republican electors and campaign attorneys in six states, as well as Mike Pence.

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Pence would be ‘best witness’ in Trump election conspiracy trial, attorney says

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John Lauro slams indictment as full of holes and says Mike Pence could help former boss fight off 2020 election conspiracy charges

Donald Trump’s attorney has suggested that Mike Pence could help his former boss fight off the 2020 election-related criminal conspiracy charges against Trump, claiming that the former vice-president would be the “best witness” for the defence.

In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, attorney John Lauro played down differences between the former president and Pence’s accounts of what happened in the run up to the 6 January 2021 certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, whose supporters attacked the US Capitol that day.

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Pence has ‘no plans to testify’ against Trump but vows to ‘obey the law’

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‘We’ll respond to the call of the law, if it comes and we’ll just tell the truth,’ says former vice-president during CBS interview

Former vice-president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said that he has “no plans to testify” against Donald Trump but vowed to “obey the law”.

In a recent interview after federal prosecutors charged Trump over his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, Pence was asked by CBS correspondent Major Garrett whether he would be a witness against Trump if the case went to trial.

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Struggling DeSantis and Pence attack criminal justice law they championed

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Candidates for Republican nomination attack First Step Act enacted under Trump in attempt to look tough on crime

As a Republican congressman, Ron DeSantis was a supporter of legislation that made moderate reforms to the federal prison system intended to reduce recidivism and mass incarceration – a cause that was also championed by then president Donald Trump and his deputy, Mike Pence.

Five years later, DeSantis, now Florida’s governor, and Pence are struggling to overtake Trump’s lead among Republicans as they vie for the party’s presidential nomination, and have turned against the criminal justice measure they both supported in an effort to win over conservative voters.

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‘We can’t rest or relent’: Pence reiterates support of staunch abortion restrictions

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Former vice-president hails Dobbs decision as ‘historic victory’ but says it didn’t go far enough and urges a nationwide abortion ban

Despite their unpopularity with the American public, former Republican vice-president and 2024 White House hopeful Mike Pence doubled down Sunday on his hard-line support of staunch abortion restrictions, saying: “We just can’t rest or relent until we restore the sanctity of life.”

Pence – in an interview on Fox News Sunday – made clear that he viewed bringing the elimination of abortion “to the center of American law” as both essential and “a winning issue” for the Republican party trying to wrest back control of the Oval Office.

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Pence tells Republicans to take hard line on abortion despite electoral liability

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Former vice-president calls for federal 15-week ‘minimum’ ban in contrast to Trump who suggested issue cost party votes

Speaking one year since the US supreme court removed the federal right to abortion, Mike Pence said candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination should stand firm on the electorally unpopular issue and take a hard line on bringing in national limits.

“For me, for our campaign, we’re going to stand where we’ve always stood, and that is without apology for the right to life,” the former congressman, Indiana governor and vice-president to Donald Trump told Politico.

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Donald Trump indictment: Merrick Garland defends special prosecutor Jack Smith in first comments on charges – live

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US attorney general praises Smith’s independence and accountability; Republican senators step up threats over Trump charges

Joe Biden has refused to publicly comment on the federal charges leveled against his predecessor Donald Trump over allegedly hoarding government documents from his time in the White House, and Politico reports the president has also instructed Democratic party offices to do the same.

While many top Democratic lawmakers have condemned the allegations against Trump, neither Biden nor top officials at the White House or his re-election campaign have spoken out about the indictment and his arraignment in Miami yesterday. Politico reports that some Democrats – none of whom would allow their names to be used – believe the strategy is a missed opportunity to cast Trump as reckless and boost Biden’s re-election chances.

Biden has privately told aides that he is disgusted by Trump’s behavior but is adhering to his promise that the Department of Justice would have independence from the White House. The DNC, meanwhile, has advised members of Congress seeking guidance on what to say that they should not comment on the Trump probes if they are speaking publicly in their role as Biden campaign surrogates.

While Biden has framed his stance as in line with longstanding tradition, it is not uncommon for presidents to occasionally weigh in on ongoing criminal investigations. Biden has at times done so himself – including weighing in before the verdict was announced in the 2021 trial of the white Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd.

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Mike Pence: ‘Trump asked me to choose him or the constitution – I chose the constitution’ – as it happened

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Former US vice president says was proud to stand by Trump but goes on to criticise attempts to overturn election result in Iowa campaign launch

We’re about an hour away from Mike Pence’s campaign launch in Iowa, and a CBS News reporter at the event noticed something telling in his campaign’s arrangements for the media.

As noted below, the password for the wifi provided to journalists seems to be a reference to Pence’s refusal to go along with Trump’s demand that he block Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s election win on January 6:

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