The AP Interview: Pence says voters want new leadership

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence mentioned Wednesday that voters are “looking for new leadership” following the disappointing midterm elections for Republicans, who at the moment are overtly debating whether or not his onetime boss, Donald Trump, ought to keep a number one position within the social gathering.

In an interview with The Associated Press simply hours after Trump introduced one other White House run, Pence declined to say whether or not the thinks the previous president is match to return to his outdated job. But he implicitly positioned himself as a possible various for Republicans searching for conservative leadership with out the chaos of the Trump period.

”I believe we could have higher selections in 2024,” Pence mentioned. “I’m very confident that Republican primary voters will choose wisely.” He mentioned that he and his household will collect over the vacations “and we’ll give prayerful consideration to what our role might be in the days ahead.”

Asked whether or not he blamed Trump for this week’s Republican losses, he mentioned, “Certainly the president’s continued efforts to relitigate the last election played a role, but … each individual candidate is responsible for their own campaign.”

Pence, whereas contemplating a presidential marketing campaign of his personal, has been elevating his profile as he promotes his new memoir, “ So Help Me God,” which was launched on the identical day that Trump made official his long-teased White House bid. If Pence strikes ahead, he could be in direct competitors with Trump, a very awkward collision for the previous vice chairman, who spent his 4 years in workplace defending Trump, refusing to criticize him publicly till after Jan. 6, 2021.

That’s when a mob of Trump’s supporters — pushed by Trump’s lie that Pence may by some means reject the election outcomes — stormed the Capitol constructing whereas Pence was presiding over the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. The vice chairman was steered to security along with his employees and household as some within the mob chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”

Still, Pence on Wednesday remained largely reticent to criticize Trump past the riot. That hesitance displays the fact that the previous president stays enormously fashionable with the GOP base that Pence would wish to win over to be aggressive in main contests.

“It wasn’t exactly the style of presidency that I would have advanced had I been the first name on the ballot,” Pence mentioned of his unlikely partnership with Trump. “But it was his presidency and I was there to support him and help him. And until that fateful day in January 2021, I sought to do just that.”

Pence mentioned he hadn’t watched Trump’s full announcement speech on Tuesday, however made the case that voters are on the lookout for a new, much less contentious path.

“You know, the president has every right to stand for election again,” he mentioned. But after touring the nation campaigning with midterm candidates, “I have a genuine sense that the American people are looking for new leadership that could unite our country around our highest ideals and that would reflect the respect and civility the American people show to one another every day, while still advancing the policies that we advanced during those years of service,” he mentioned.

Trump’s marketing campaign launch comes as Republicans grapple with fallout from elections by which they didn’t wrest management of the Senate and are on observe to win solely the narrowest majority within the House. Those outcomes got here regardless of voters’ deep issues over inflation and the path of the nation underneath Democrat Biden.

Trump endorsed an extended record of candidates in aggressive states together with Pennsylvania and Arizona who then misplaced their basic election races. While Pence mentioned he was happy Republicans have been taking the House, he acknowledged the election “wasn’t quite the red wave that we all had hoped for.”

“My conclusion,” he mentioned, “is the candidates that were focused on the future, focused on the challenges the American people are facing today and solutions to those challenges did quite well.” But these nonetheless questioning the 2020 outcomes — as Trump demanded — “did not do as well.”

In his new e book, Pence writes intimately about his expertise on Jan. 6, and he expounded on that Wednesday.

“I’ll never forget the simmering indignation that I felt that day, seeing those sights on the cellphones as we gathered in the loading dock below the Senate chamber. I couldn’t help but think not this, not here, not in America,” he mentioned.

In the interview, he recalled his response to Trump’s tweets “that criticize me directly at a time that a riot was raging in the Capitol hallways.”

“The president’s words were reckless, and they endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol building,” he mentioned. “The president had decided to be a part of the problem. I was determined to be a part of the solution.”

Asked what penalties Trump ought to face for his actions, nonetheless, Pence punted.

“That’s up to the American people,” he mentioned he believes. “I truly do. And look, I’ll always be proud of the record of the Trump administration for four-and-a-half years. President Trump was not just my president. He was my friend. And we worked closely together to advance the policies that we’d been elected to serve.”

“It didn’t end well,” he acknowledged, in an understatement. “And that tragic day in January will always be a day of great sadness for me, a sadness about what had happened to our relationship, to the bad advice the president was accepting from a group of lawyers that, as I write in my book, should never have been allowed on the White House grounds, let alone in the Oval Office. ”

Pence and Trump have been all the time an odd couple — a pugilistic, crude New York movie star and a staid Midwestern evangelical who as soon as wrote an essay on the evils of damaging campaigning and who, as a rule, says he won’t dine alone with a girl who shouldn’t be his spouse. Asked why he so not often spoke up when Trump launched deeply private insults in opposition to figures such because the late Sen. John McCain, Pence mentioned, in impact, that that was what he had had signed up for.

“As his vice president, I believed it was my role to be loyal to the president,” he mentioned. “And so every step of the way, the way I squared it was I believe that I had been elected vice president to support the presidency that Donald Trump had been elected to advance.”

Indeed, Pence within the e book writes that even after Jan. 6, the 2 males “parted amicably when our service to the nation drew to a close.”

“And in the weeks that followed, from time to time, he would call me and to speak and check in,” Pence mentioned within the interview. “But when he returned to criticizing me and others who had upheld the Constitution that day, I just decided I’d be best to go our separate ways. And we have.”

Asked why he would half “amicably” with Trump given the president’s actions — together with his choice to not name Pence to verify in on his security whereas the riot was underway — Pence mentioned he believed the president had been genuinely regretful once they met for the primary time after the sixth.

“For the balance of about 90 minutes, we sat, we talked. I was very direct with the president. I made it clear to him that I believe that I did my duty that day, and I sensed genuine remorse on his part,” Pence recalled. “The president and I had forged not only a good working relationship, but a friendship over four-and-a-half years. We worked together literally every day. But he was different in that time. I encouraged him to take the matter to prayer.”

As for his plans for the long run, as everybody asks whether or not he plans to run, he and his household will collect over the vacations “and we’ll give prayerful consideration to what our role might be in the days ahead.”