'He betrayed his country': Mike Pence’s RNC absence 'cast a shadow over' convention

16 July 2024

The Republican Party's quadrennial convention is underway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this week, but once journalist covering the event observed that one high-profile Republican is "conspicuously" absent: Former Vice President Mike Pence.

In a Tuesday article for Mother Jones, reporter Tim Murphy wrote that former President Donald Trump's second-in-command not attending this year's Republican National Convention (RNC) didn't go unnoticed by other attendees, either. While he was waiting for Trump's official announcement of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his 2024 running mate, Murphy asked several delegates at Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum what they thought of Trump's first running mate refusing to endorse his former boss in his third bid for the White House.

"He was a great vice president until he wasn’t," Nevada Republican Mike Bassett told Murphy. He added that "loyalty to Trump" was one of his own main criterion in the former president's search for a new running mate.

Florida Republican Rose Roque, who was attending the convention with her daughter, Rose Rodriguez, told Murphy that she didn't "even want to say" what she thought about Pence when he asked her. But her daughter was more outspoken about the former vice president who declined to intervene in Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021.

"He betrayed his country," Rodriguez said. "Although he thought he was doing the correct thing, according to him, he let himself be poisoned. And I think he already was poisoned—he came in already being that way."

Before Vance was announced as Trump's pick for vice president, Murphy reported that other delegates ruminated about other options. Those favored by delegates include disgraced former two-star General Michael Flynn (Trump's former National Security Adviser) and others that would help the GOP shore up support from key voting blocs, like women and people of color.

"I did talk to delegates who wanted governing or managerial experience, strong communication skills, and even a bit of gender or racial diversity from their VP. Republicans floated Byron Donalds and Tulsi Gabbard. More than one person pined for Glenn Youngkin," Murphy wrote. "But Pence had cast a shadow over the search."

New Jersey Republican Michael Rosen opined that Pence "seemed to be trying to do a balancing act and it never really worked," culminating in the January 6 insurrection in which a mob of Trump supporters roamed the halls of the U.S. Capitol chanting "hang Mike Pence." He said Trump needed "someone who’s gonna work with him and not gonna leave him in a lurch at the end."

"[Pence] should have worked with Trump when he was going through all that stuff instead of throwing his hands up and saying ‘I’ve got no control,'" Rosen said. "We were kind of left with nothing."

Click here to read Murphy's full report in Mother Jones.

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