Former Vice President Mike Pence revealed that he would not endorse Donald Trump for president and refused to say how he planned to vote in the November election, CBS News reported.
In a March 15 interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum, Pence said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he would not be endorsing Trump in the election, explaining that he could not “in good conscience” support the former president.
Pence said that while he was proud of the record of the first Trump administration, the agenda that Trump was now “pursuing and articulating” was at odds with the conservative agenda of his first term in office.
Pence described the differences between him and Trump as “profound” and noted that as he watched Trump campaign for president this time around, he has “seen him walking away from our commitment” to protect the sanctity of life.
Pence also noted Trump’s recent about-face on TikTok, which he described as a reversal of the previous Trump administration’s commitment to “getting tough on China” by forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok.
When asked how he would vote in the November election, Pence said he would keep his vote to himself but added that he would never vote for President Biden, nor would he choose a third-party candidate.
The former vice president reiterated his unwillingness to endorse Trump during an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” two days later.
Pence told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign had departed from “the mainstream conservative agenda” supported by the Republican Party for more than 40 years, which Pence said was still “the best hope for the future of the country.”
Pence also hammered Trump for describing those convicted of crimes related to the January 6 riot as “hostages” at an Ohio rally that weekend, saying it was “unfortunate” for Trump to describe the Americans “moving through our justice system as hostages” at a time when Americans are currently being held hostage in Gaza.
