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Pence declines to support Trump if he’s 2024 nominee: ‘I’m confident we’ll have better choices’ | US elections 2024 |
The Guardian

Pence declines to support Trump if he’s 2024 nominee: ‘I’m confident we’ll have better choices’
Former vice-president, expected to run for Republican nominee for president, says ‘different times call for different
leadership’
Twice given a chance to say he would support Donald Trump if he was the Republican nominee for president in 2024,
Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, declined to do so.

“I’m very confident we’ll have better choices come 2024,” Pence told CBS on Wednesday. “And I’m confident our
standard-bearer will win the day in November of that year.”
Pence also said “different times call for different leadership”.

Trump, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and author, are
the only declared candidates for the Republican nomination. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to
run and is Trump’s only challenger in polling.
Pence joins Haley in scoring single digits in most surveys. He told CBS he would make a decision on whether to run “this
spring”.

Pence’s reluctance to commit to supporting Trump points to a possible outcome feared by Republicans: that Trump will
split the party either by winning the nomination without majority support or losing it and refusing to support the winner.

Trump has refused to commit to supporting another nominee.

Haley has refused to attack Trump personally but she has called for mental competency tests for politicians over the
age of 75. Trump is 76.
Pence said: “I come from southern Indiana, where people think most politicians should have a competency test. No, I
think the American people can sort that out. I really do.”

He added: “I really believe that the conservative movement has always been animated by ideas.

“We’ve had big personalities, from [Ronald] Reagan all the way to Donald Trump. But I think it’s the ideas – of
commitment to a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, limited government and traditional values – that really I
think created this movement and still sustain it.”

Pence claimed “the record of the Trump-Pence administration” – four chaotic years which ended with Trump refusing
to call off supporters who chanted for Pence to be hanged as they stormed Congress – bore out such Republican values.
He also said voters were telling him “they want to see us get back to the kind of civility in politics that the American
people show each other every day”.

According to testimony before the House January 6 committee, Trump told aides Pence deserved to be hanged, for
refusing to block certification of Joe Biden’s win.
The Department of Justice is still investigating Trump’s election subversion and incitement of the Capitol attack.

Pence has been celebrated for defying Trump but he is now challenging a subpoena from the special counsel, Jack Smith.

Pence told CBS: “The notion of compelling a former vice-president to appear in court to testify against the president
with whom they served is unprecedented, but I also believe it’s unconstitutional.”

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Donald Trump's 'Biggest Opportunity' to Hurt Ron DeSantis Revealed (newsweek.com)

Donald Trump's 'Biggest Opportunity' to Hurt Ron DeSantis Revealed. BY EWAN PALMER. 03 March 2023

Donald Trump has an ideal chance to attack Ron DeSantis at the Conservative Political Action Conference by noting the
recent praise given to the Florida Governor by Jeb Bush, according to a former GOP congressman.

David Jolly, who formally represented Florida's 13th district, told MSNBC's Joy Reid that the former president should use
the comments Bush gave to Fox News in support of DeSantis and "hang that around Ron DeSantis' neck" at CPAC.

Trump is set to headline CPAC on March 4. DeSantis, who is widely considered the main challenger to Trump in the GOP
presidential primary despite still not confirming he's running for president, won't be present at the event. Instead, he
will be attending GOP dinners in Texas and California, as well as a Club for Growth donor retreat in Florida.

Bush, a former Florida governor and 2016 presidential hopeful, recently named DeSantis as a future GOP leader,
describing him as a "serious contender" in Republican politics who has "shown that Florida can be a model for the future
of our country."

On Wednesday's episode of The ReidOut, Jolly said Trump has an ideal opportunity to attack his potential primary rivals
at CPAC in their absence.

"What I'm watching for this is the biggest opportunity Donald Trump has had since he launched his re-election campaign,
to do one thing, go after Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence and the establishment Republicans," Jolly said.

"He's attacked David McIntosh, the leader of the Club for Growth. On the eve of CPAC, Ron DeSantis just rolled out the
endorsement of Jeb Bush. Now, if Donald Trump is worth his salt as the angry, populist leader of MAGA nation, he is
going to hang that around Ron DeSantis's neck and do it at CPAC."

Jolly made the remarks despite DeSantis not having "rolled out" the supportive comments from Bush, and Trump already
repeatedly attacking DeSantis on Truth Social.

Bush recently told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade that DeSantis has been a "really effective governor" and believes the GOP
is on the "verge of a generational change."

Bush added: "I think it's time for a more forward leaning future oriented conversation or politics as well, which has made
him should he choose to run for president, a serious contender in Republican politics, and who better to do it than
someone who's been outside of Washington, who's governed effectively, who I think has shown that Florida can be a
model for the future of our country."

Bush later told Politico that the comments were merely "praise" rather than an official endorsement of DeSantis.

David B. Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron in Ohio, said that Trump may actually run the
risk of being seen as "petty" if he uses his upcoming CPAC appearance to attack those also seeking the GOP presidential
nomination.

"If anything, the shade Trump will attempt to throw at former acolytes turned potential rivals like Ron DeSantis and Mike
Pence will make him seem small and petty—though most all of his public actions do that already," Cohen told Newsweek.

"Events like CPAC will just serve to remind some conservatives how much they relish the thought of turning the page
from Trump to someone else."

Bush was seen as the early frontrunner in the 2016 GOP presidential primary until Trump threw his name into the hat.

Trump repeatedly attacked Bush during the 2016 primary, seeing him as indicative of the apparent failures of the
establishment GOP in the preceding years.

Trump also tried to attach Bush to his brother, former President George W. Bush, and what he called the "mistake" of
the 2002 invasion of Iraq.