Mike Pence, on the Record

Secondly, just looking at the policies of an administration that literally—I think, if Joe Biden had an agenda, and I don’t really remember much hearing an agenda from the campaign, but if he’d been candid about it, it would be just undo everything that Trump and Pence did, apparently. It was just literally from day one, this administration went about dismantling successful policies at the border, policies that achieved energy independence, policies that literally had the economy coming back strongly. And they managed to go, it seems to me, in the opposite direction on everything we’ve done. And as I said in my announcement speech, all the crises that the American people are facing at home today are all man-made. And that man’s name is Joe Biden.

And looking at that, Karen and I just spent a fair amount of time reflecting, praying, talking with friends, and we just concluded that given our background, our experience, that we believe the Republican Party needs new leadership, and we believe America needs new leadership, and we believe that we will be able to assemble a team, bring a Congress and set policies in place that will put our country back on the track toward a stronger, more prosperous America. . . .

I hear people talking about a return to normalcy, which is what we were talking about 100 years ago. And after a tumultuous decade—a decade that if you think about it, there was also intraparty feuding, when you think about the battles that took place between Taft and Roosevelt, and then the Bull Moose Party, ultimately, and then add into that World War I and the rise of Progressivism in the country—and when the new administration came in after the 1920 election, there was a hunger for—they actually coined the term “normalcy.” . . .

I’ve had so many people come up to me over the last two years. And they identify me—I’m a mainstream conservative, I’m somebody that at least people in the conservative movement knew before I was vice president. They knew me from my years as governor; they knew me from when I was a leader among House conservatives on Capitol Hill. And I think they also know my approach to politics. I’m someone that believes that democracy depends on heavy doses of civility. I’ve always tried to treat others the way I want to be treated, at least in the last 20 years of my career. . . .

When I first ran for office in 1988 and in 1990, we got involved in some very negative campaigns, very hard punching personal attacks. And I ended up reflecting on that in the aftermath of those campaigns, about my what my Christian faith required of me and the importance of the issues that animated my desire to serve in public life, and I determined then that if I ever had the opportunity to run again or to serve, I would try and carry myself first in a way that honored God, treated others the way I wanted to be treated, and then stood firmly for my values and ideals.

On why he and Donald Trump lost in 2020:

Even as we were battling through reopening the country in Covid, I would go out on the campaign trail. And anytime I would return, I’d tell my old running mate that I sensed there was more enthusiasm out there in 2020 than there was in 2016. And it turned out that was demonstrably true. We got 10 million more votes in 2020 than we got in 2016. . . . But I think I think a combination of things happened. No. 1 is I think we lost because history showed up. . . . I think it’s impossible to understand what happened in 2020 without understanding the impact of the worst pandemic in 100 years. . . .

The other part of it was that I think to a large extent we also got outplayed on voter turnout, and mail-in voting. . . . I’ll never forget the day that Ronna McDaniel came into the Oval Office rather sheepishly in the middle of September. She brought a little delegation over from the RNC—true story—and she showed up; she was holding a draft of a tweet. She’s standing in front of the Resolute Desk; I was seated in my typical chair off to the right. And she said, “Mr. President, there’s a tweet we’d like you to put out.” And he said, “Oh, what?” And he took it. And it’s something to the effect of “it’s OK to vote early or vote by mail.” And he read it. He said, “Oh, I don’t like mail-in voting.” And she said, “We get that. Totally get it. But a lot of people are voting by mail. And some of the early returns—we’re getting killed on mail-in voting.” And he said “No, I don’t like it.” She said, “I know you don’t like it, you don’t really have to like it. But it’d be great if you put this out; it’ll help us out.” And so he did—you can go back and check it. And they put out a tweet about mail-in voting. And the next rally, he started again to say, “Don’t vote by mail.” . . .

The last thing I would say is I do think Joe Biden’s pledge to change the tone in politics was early evidence of what I think is still out there today. I think he broke that pledge almost immediately when he took office. I mean, all this rhetoric about “MAGA Republicans” and “Jim Crow 2.0.” I mean, he’s even taken to attacking members of his own party on a personal basis when they don’t line up.

On being selected as Donald Trump’s running mate in 2016:

I didn’t know him and that was one of the things that when they reached out to us about being considered, we said there’s two things we’d have to know. No. 1, we’d have to know them as a family; we’d have to have a chance to spend time with them, which I didn’t think we’d be able to—because everything we do we do as a family. Karen and I and our kids and our grandkids, we just kind of all operate together. The other part was, I just want to know the job description, I wanted to know: Would I be able to be a part of advancing an agenda that had really characterized my entire career? . . . I’ve been a consistent conservative my entire life. And I wanted to know if I was going to be in a position to be a part of ensuring that we kept that promise.

And so we spent time we actually had an early rapport with them, I felt that he was somebody that I could work with. And that was true for almost the entire term. The end of it was, I’m really proud of the record. I know some in this field have taken to criticizing our record, including criticizing our Supreme Court nominees, which—I couldn’t be more proud of the three justices we appointed to the Supreme Court.

On his policy differences with Mr. Trump:

In 2016 Donald Trump promised to govern as a conservative, and we did for four years. One of the reasons . . . I’m running for president is because he makes no such promise today. With regard to a whole range of issues, he and a few others in this field are moving away from a traditional conservative agenda, whether it be American leadership in the world—the [former] president is signaling an ambiguous commitment to American support for Ukraine’s fight for freedom and restoring its sovereignty.

When it comes to entitlements, Joe Biden’s policy is insolvency. He refuses to even talk with members of his own party about entitlement reform, which is 70% of the federal budget. And Donald Trump’s policy is identical to Joe Biden’s on entitlement reform. I hold the view that we’re the party of fiscal responsibility and reform and, the fact that we are headed for a debt crisis the likes of which the world has never seen—I think we have a moral obligation to be straight with the American people about the size of the debt crisis and actually where it’s headed for the country without reform.

And then lastly is on the right to life. I’m pro-life, I don’t apologize for it. . . . When I saw the former president and others in this field are beginning to shy away from the cause of life, or blaming the Dobbs decision of a year ago for electoral losses in 2022—I believe that the cause of life has been the animating core of our movement for 50 years and that the American people and the Republicans longed to see leadership that remains dedicated to the principle of restoring the sanctity of life to the center of American law.

On abortion and Republicans’ disappointing results in 2022:

I think a careful study of the ’22 election shows that candidates of ours that were focused on the future did very well. Candidates that were focused on the past did not do well—particularly candidates who were focused on relitigating the past did not do well. You can look around the country and while Democrats spent over $300 million on the issue of abortion in races around the country, you can point to many races where it puts the lie to the notion that that was a deciding factor.

Zach Nunn is a congressman now from Des Moines, Iowa. He rounds out now the first all-Republican delegation from Iowa to Washington, D.C., in 75 years. He beat Congresswoman Cindy Axne. All she talked about was abortion. It was a Democrat district. But Zach addressed it with principle and compassion, and put his wife and I think eight children on television with him and said, “This is who we are. But we’re going to show compassion. We’re going to come alongside women in crisis pregnancies, we’re going to provide support and stand for the right to life. He won the election and is doing a great job.

Brian Kemp, easily in the toughest race in the country. He was challenged in the primary by a handpicked candidate by the former president. He won the primary by 50 points by staying focused on the future. And despite the fact that he signed a heartbeat bill, a six-weeks bill, he went on to defeat the most formidable Democrat candidate in America in Stacey Abrams, by 7 percentage points. The same with Mike DeWine in Ohio—signed a heartbeat bill, a six-week bill, and he won by 20 points.

So I actually think the right conclusion—which I understand why my former running mate wouldn’t see the same way—candidates around the country that were focused on relitigating the past did not do well, including in states and in districts that we should have done well. Candidates who focused on the future did very well. And I still think, No. 1, even if it wasn’t politically—even if it had political costs to it, I would stand for the right to life. But I actually think we’re moving into a new season on the right to life, where it’s been returned to the states and the American people.

On federal legislation to ban abortion after 15 weeks:

There’s another argument I have with my former running mate and others are saying it’s a states-only issue. The Supreme Court didn’t return it to the states only. And I see that as a potential trap for the pro-life movement. They actually returned it to the states and to the American people, and the American people elect presidents, they elect senators, they elect congressmen. And so I think the American people that cherish the sanctity of life want to see us continue to advance this cause. . . .

I’d be happy to support it. That would more align the United States with the countries in the European Union. The average abortion law in the EU is 12 to 15 weeks. I mean, we’re—at a national level, our laws are more aligned with around China and North Korea right now. So I’d certainly support that.

On spending and debt:

We sit here today with a national debt the size of our nation’s economy for the first time since World War II. But the reality is, based on CBO numbers, that grows by another $120 trillion in the next 25 years. And that’s based on a good projected set of revenues and fixed expenditures in entitlements. My judgment is if you wait until my three absolutely perfect granddaughters, who are 2 and 4 months and 4 months—if you wait till they’re 25 to deal with this, all the choices are bad—all of them. According to the economists that I respect, you’re either going to have to double payroll taxes in the country, or import some kind of a European-style welfare state taxation system, like a VAT or something else, because the numbers simply don’t add up. And we’ll talk about that a lot the campaign because I actually think the first part of achieving entitlement reform is (a) having the courage to talk about it and (b) being straight with the American people about the magnitude of crisis.

On how conservatism has changed:

I don’t think this movement has changed that much. I think we added things to it. We built on top of it. But I think the movement that was minted when Russell Kirk wrote “The Conservative Mind,” when Barry Goldwater went crashing into American politics, when Ronald Reagan is elected in 1980—a movement that’s committed to a strong national defense, limited government, traditional moral values—I think that is still the foundation of this movement. And I say that with the authority of having given a lot of speeches over the last seven years. And all of those things still resonate with people, right?

We built on top of that, along the way, the idea that border security is national security, right? The notion that . . . trade should be fair as well as free. . . . But then the other one is we changed the national consensus on China. I think the American people have broadly recognized and the people of our movement are animated by realization that China is the greatest economic and strategic threat the United States faces today. But I see those things as built on top of those principles. They didn’t wash away those principles and replace them. . . .

Leaders in our movement need to resist the temptation—resist the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles. . . . That’s not what will inspire our people to deliver victories. . . . There is a core of people in our party today that are for the former president. And I respect that. They have every right—they identify with him. I used to say in the 2016 election that people are tired of being told—tired of being told this is as good as it gets, tired of being told that our best days are behind us, tired of being told, as Ronald Reagan memorably said, that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives better for us than we can plan them ourselves. And I honestly believe and I love those people. They’re good people. But they’ve identified that strong sentiment with him, and that’s OK, that’s great.

I believe that the majority, and a strong majority, of Republicans are not just animated by their appreciation for him and for his leadership, but they’re still animated by the same principles. And I think those people are animated by those same principles, too. But I think it’s going to be a worthy debate in the party about where we’re going and what we’re about, what our objectives are.

On the war in Ukraine:

It would be nice if we had a president that had the urgency that prior presidents have had in such moments. I mean, when Reagan mints the Reagan Doctrine in 1985 . . . he essentially said: If you’re willing to fight the communists in your country, we’ll give you the means to fight them there, so we don’t have to fight them here. To me, that was part and parcel of what helped bring down the Soviet Union . . . that forward-leaning policy of supporting people that are fighting for freedom. I still think that’s there.

When I give speeches around the country the last year since the initiation of hostilities in Ukraine, I have to tell you, Republican audiences respond to that. . . . It’d be nice to have a president that would explain what our national interest is there, which is not the broad brush of democracy in the world, for heaven’s sakes. . . . No, it is in absolutely the interests of the United States of America to check Russian ambitions in Eastern Europe. Absolutely, 100%. . . .

We’ve got, we got candidates in this field that—my former running mate said he couldn’t say who should win. We got other people that have said it’s not in our national interest to be there. It’s absolutely in our national interest. And also you can go very practically here, right? I mean, checking Russian aggression in Eastern Europe is in our nation’s interest, because it wouldn’t be too long before they cross a border that we would have to send our servicemen and -women. Not “may,” but “shall” under Article 5.

But the other part of it, too, is, you think about it—in one short year, Russia has gone from the second-most-powerful military in the world to the second-most-powerful military in Ukraine. That’s a good thing. . . .

President Xi is going to make decisions about China’s ambitions based on what the outcome is in Ukraine. I have no doubt in my mind that as if he continues to see America serving as leader of the free world, restraining Russian aggression and staying in it until the Russian invasion is repelled, I think the Asia-Pacific gets a little quieter. The opposite of that—I think we could find ourselves in a much more dangerous world.

On his path to victory in the primaries:

I know there’s a lot of talk these days about who can win and who can’t win. I’m running because of who I think shouldn’t win. And the belief, with all humility, that I’m prepared not just to win but to serve. So I start there.

But the path to victory—I have to tell you. it wasn’t easy for me not to announce for president in my hometown. I’m a Hoosier born and bred; we moved back to Indiana two years ago, my mom doesn’t travel well. But we announced in Iowa, OK, so you can probably read between the lines there. And we got a good crowd; we got a lot of enthusiasm.

I think that the path to victory begins—Vince Lombardi said sometimes there’s no substitute for just going out and winning the ballgame. I think pundits and pollsters will probably spend the next six months saying what can’t happen. But I don’t need to tell any of the political observers around this table how many inevitabilities were not inevitable . . . all the people that at this point in the cycle were seen as absolutely inevitable, really no point in even having a primary because it’s so far gone.

I will tell you the impression I’ve gotten traveling around Iowa. . . . I think there’s a lot more openness than appears in the polls right now. I tend to think that the former president’s strength in the polls is more a reflection of how bad Biden is. I really do. I mean, it’s almost like if you get a phone call, and somebody says to you, “who are you for,” people immediately go to a familiar name because Biden is so bad, even if they weren’t entirely happy with the tone or record of the last administration. Virtually, unless you get to your most hardened Democrats, I would say two-thirds of the American public know it was better under us. I mean, the border was secure, the economy was prospering, the world was at peace. They know that. . . .

On facing Mr. Trump:

Well, you’ve got to listen to my announcement speech. . . . I talked about Jan. 6, right out of the gate. I felt it was important that I lay that on the line, because we still—I don’t think it’s anywhere near a majority, although that’s the cliché out there. But it’s—I know we did our duty under the Constitution that day, and I wanted people to understand that that day, the president demanded that I put him over the Constitution. My announcement speech, I said to people: I chose the Constitution, and I always will. And I also said that I had hoped he would come around and see that he had been misled about my authority that day. But he has not. And he continues to argue that I had some authority that the Constitution did not afford me. . . .

I think it’s a distinct minority of people that still believe that I had the right to overturn the election. But it’s not an insignificant number of people that believe that, greatly aided by the fact that the President Trump continues to tell them that. But it’s just not true. I said in my announcement speech, President Trump was wrong then and he’s wrong now. And I also said that no one who puts himself over the Constitution should ever be president. And no one who asked someone else to put them over the Constitution should ever be present again. And it was met with applause. . . .

People ask me: How do you see yourself debating Donald Trump? And I invariably answer, I’ve debated Donald Trump more times than I can remember. Just not with the cameras on. I’d relish it. I’d look forward to it. I think it’ll be great.

On corporations pushing left-wing social policies:

In my day, I’ve had my battles with activist corporate America. I said, back in 2015, when we passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it was the first battle between woke corporate America and America, we—came to Indiana, it was a firestorm. It literally went on for months. And we would eventually quiet it by taking a strong stand on Indiana Constitution’s commitment to religious freedom. . . .

But the one thing I never did then was try and punish corporations that took a different view of that issue. And I just saw it today in your [editorial]. California is at it again. The state of California is now going to try and punish fast-food restaurants in California because of the referendum and they’ve taken a different view on public policy. Add to that California recently announced they were going to cancel $120 million contract with Walgreens not because of anything Walgreens was doing in California, but because Walgreens was saying we’re not going to sell abortifacient pills in states where it’s not legal to sell, and Gavin Newsom and in the state of California said we’re going to punish a private corporation.

And I’ve had my argument with the governor of Florida on this, and with the state of Florida. I’ve strongly supported their effort to protect children from the radical gender-identity agenda. . . . But the decision then to go after Disney and their taxing authority—I just, I don’t support it. . . . No state should use government power to punish corporations that take a different political position than they take. Let’s have that fight in the state legislature. Let’s have it in the Congress. Let’s count the votes. But other than that, move forward. And I think with regard to California, with regard to Florida, they’d do well to stand down, keep the politics in the public square, and let the free market work.

On the Trump administration’s response to Covid:

The 15 days to slow the spread that became 45 days—not quite, because we were opening up the country after about 30—that was a tactic designed to give us time to develop supplies, and spin up testing and ensure that our medical system was not overwhelmed. That’s how it was sold to us. . . . They came to me on the task force and they said: Look, if what’s happening in Seattle, in New York, in New Jersey, New Orleans and Detroit starts happening everywhere, we got a major problem, because we’re not going to have medical supplies, we don’t have nearly enough testing and ventilator supply is way low. People are going to die for lack of treatment, lack of available resources.

My view was that those early steps were about, to use an athletic term, take a knee—just take a knee for 30 days, 15 days turns into 30 days we’re opening up the country—was never intended to be a policy. . . . I think that tactic worked. What happened that was wrong, was that you had many Democrat governors around the country that took what was a tactic in the early going and made that policy in their states, when there was no basis for that. . . .

We never recommended the schools closed, ever. In fact, I was so alarmed seeing Democrat states around the country preparing to close schools and keep them closed. As the fall 2020 approached, I got Betsy DeVos, I got the whole team, we went over to the Department of Education, filled the place with media, and had a live press conference saying we’re not asking you to close schools. But most of the Democrat states around the country went ahead and closed them. It worked a tremendous hardship on our kids, set kids back. And I wish we to put a harder hammer on that. . . .

One of the things I did when I became head of the task force was we added the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of agriculture, Larry Kudlow, our chief economic adviser, because the task force that had been assembled before I was tapped to lead it was largely just health officials and scientists. And I said, this is a this is going to have broad-based implications for the American people in the American economy. . . .

Georgia was the first state to open up. I literally traveled down there in mid-April and took Gov. Kemp to lunch. I went to Florida and took Gov. DeSantis to lunch at a pizza place—just emphasizing we can do this, we can open back up. In my view that was the message of our administration, but ultimately Democrat governors around the country were using their authority with regard to their schools, with regard to local policies, and many cities, Democrat-led cities, were doing that as well. I think it’s a worthy discussion to have, but our message was opening up going forward from basically, mid-April forward.

On the federal indictment of Mr. Trump:

First, let me say emphatically, no one is above the law. That’s a core American principle. Another core principle is that as Americans, you’re innocent until proven guilty. So the former president is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

But I want to say: Having had experience as vice president and in my years on the International Relations Committee in the Congress, the handling of classified materials is a very serious matter, and it bears upon the very security of our nation. Having read the indictment, these are very serious allegations, and I can’t defend what is alleged. . . .

The suggestion that there were documents pertaining to the defense capabilities of the United States and our allies, our nuclear program, to potential vulnerabilities of the United States and our allies mean the release of those, even the inadvertent release of that kind of information, could compromise our national security and the safety of our armed forces. And frankly, having two members of our immediate family serving in the armed forces of the United States, I will never diminish the importance of protecting our nation’s secrets.

But all that being said, let me say, after years of politicization at the Justice Department—years I lived through, where we went through 2½ years of a Russia hoax that now, thanks to the Durham report, we’ve confirmed that investigation should never even have been initiated; the constant barrage of media looking at what happened in the campaign in 2016 relative to the former secretary of state—after years of politicization, it’s hard for me to believe that politics didn’t play some role in this decision. And it’s one of the reasons I have called on the attorney general to come before the American people and answer questions about what if any role he played, or his judgment played, in the decision to move forward with an unprecedented indictment of the former president of the United States.

I think millions of Americans are deeply troubled by this indictment, particularly given the fact that Hillary Clinton engaged in very similar behavior in the 2016 campaign and did not face indictment. And we’ve got to have equal treatment under the law in this country. But my bottom line is this: I think the American people have lost confidence in the Department of Justice not just because of this, but because of really a long series of abuses that have come to light and as I’ve said publicly, as president we’re going to clean house and in the senior offices at the Department of Justice, we’re going to give the Department of Justice a fresh start with men and women who are respected on both sides of the aisle for their commitment to the law. And I’ll leave it at that.