Trump and his allies turned on Pence in January after he refused, in his capacity as president of the Senate, to reject the electoral votes of certain states that voted for Biden. Trump, who has said he is considering another run for the presidency in 2024, has repeatedly criticized Pence in three months since they left office.
Some of the pro-Trump demonstrators who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 shouted that they specifically were looking for the vice president.
At the time, Pence said he lacked the legal authority to carry out Trump s demands. He did not discuss the insurrection nor Trump s baseless protests of the election Thursday.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence has begun to step toward a 2024 presidential bid in his first speech rallying conservatives around the successes of the Trump-Pence administration.
In South Carolina Thursday, he hit the Biden administration for changing former President Donald Trump’s policies and said that he and the former president made America better.
Of his future, he said, “Over the coming months, I’ll have more to say.”
But at the end of his address, Pence also showed that he remains the nation’s leading political evangelical leader by giving witness to his faith, calling on the nation to follow the direction of God, and emotionally recalling the day he became born again.
Apr 30, 2021
(Columbia, SC) Former Vice President Mike Pence is speaking out for the first time since Joe Biden became President.
Pence spoke at the Palmetto Family Council Annual Gala in Columbia last night.
It s the first public speech he s made since leaving office and may serve as a test to see if he should run for president in 2024.
“In 48 months, the Trump-Pence administration achieved the lowest unemployment, highest household incomes, most energy production, most pro-American trade deals, most secure border & strongest military in American history,” Mr. Pence told the Palmetto Family Council.
He said the Biden agenda is a direct threat to conservative values, citing renewed funding for Planned Parenthood and authorization of “critical race theory” in federal agencies and public schools.
Mr. Pence also pledged to “cancel cancel-culture wherever it arises.”
The vice president also spoke in forward-looking terms, saying the Trump-Pence era outlined a roadmap for victory as the GOP eyes retaking the House in 2022 and whether a counter-option to Mr. Trump will emerge ahead of 2024.