Former Vice President Mike Pence said that I would not support the candidacy of Republican Donald Trumpheading to the elections in the United States this year, as a rebuke to his former running mate.
Pence was vice president during the Trump administration and later sought to be a presidential candidate, however, he suspended his campaign in October 2023.
“During my presidential campaign I made it clear that There were deep differences between President Trump and me on a variety of issues, and not just our difference in my constitutional duty that I exercised on January 6,” he said in an interview with Fox News on Friday.
Pence challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination last year, but failed to gain much traction in the polls and dropped out before voting began. Pence, along with former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, is one of the few rivals in the primaries who have refused to endorse the former president.
As part of their efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, Trump pressured Pence to interrupt the certification of the Electoral College ballots.
Pence argued that he did not have the authority to do so, leading rioters to chant “Hang Mike Pence” as they stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The US House of Representatives select committee which investigated the insurrection reported that Trump expressed support for the mob’s violent chants about his then-vice president.
“Look, I’m incredibly proud of our administration’s record,” Pence said in the Fox News interview. “It was a conservative record that made America more prosperous, safer and saw conservatives appointed to our courts in a more peaceful world.”
Pence declined to say who he would support, adding that I would not vote for President Joe Biden.
