Pence Says He Won’t Endorse Trump’s White House Comeback Bid
(Bloomberg) -- Former Vice President Mike Pence said he would not endorse presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, a rebuke of his former running mate.
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“During my presidential campaign I made clear there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues, and not just our difference on my constitutional duty that I exercised on January the sixth,” he told 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 any voting began. Pence, along with former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, is one of the few primary rivals who have declined to endorse the former president.
As part of his efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, Trump pressured Pence to disrupt the certification of Electoral College ballots.
Pence argued that he did not have the authority to do so, which led to rioters chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” as they stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The US House select committee that investigated the insurrection reported that Trump expressed support of the mob’s violent chants about his then-vice president.
“Look, I’m incredibly proud of the record of our administration,” Pence said in an interview on Fox News’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
“It was a conservative record that made America more prosperous, more secure, and saw conservatives appointed to our courts in a more peaceful world,” he added.
Pence declined to say who he’d support, adding that he wouldn’t vote for President Joe Biden.
(Updates with name of program, in sixth paragraph.)
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