mike pence

Mike Pence gives ominous warning about Trump's 'very likely' fate after midterms

Former Vice President Mike Pence offered a grim outlook for his one-time running mate, Donald Trump, should things go poorly for the GOP, per a report from the Daily Beast, echoing the president's own recent predictions.

Pence previously served as vice president during Trump's first term and ran for reelection alongside him in his failed 2020 campaign. His refusal to go along with Trump's plan to overturn the results of that race by not certifying them in Congress led to a severe falling out between the two, with January 6 Capitol rioters infamously calling for Pence to be hanged. Since then, Pence has emerged as a vocal critic of Trump's continued political machinations, decrying him for drifting away from traditional conservative values and Constitutional law.

On Thursday, Pence appeared on CNN and told host Kaitlin Collins that he concurred with Trump's recent prediction that he would be impeached if Democrats take back the House majority in the 2026 midterms, as they are widely expected to do. Pence suggested that, whatever the circumstances, Democrats would "very likely" find some ground on which to launch impeachment proceedings.

“I think it’s very likely,” Pence said. “I mean, they impeached the president for a phone call when we were in office, and I expect it in this highly divided, partisan town.”

Pence referred to Trump's first impeachment from 2020, after he was accused of extorting Ukrainian leaders for dirt on Hunter Biden in exchange for foreign aid. Trump became the first president ever impeached twice in 2021 following his involvement in the events of January 6. Both times, Republicans were able to vote down his conviction in the Senate, preventing him from being removed from office and barred from running in the future.

As Trump has moved more and more in his second term to seize powers delegated to Congress, act without congressional approval and use his office to personally enrich himself, Democrats have raised the prospect of impeachment countless times. Though these threats have been prevented from moving forward due to GOP majorities in the House and Senate, Trump's skyrocketing unpopularity with voters has increased the odds of Democrats retaking the House in 2026, which would clear the way for a third impeachment.

“You gotta win the midterms,” Trump said at a speech on Tuesday marking the fifth anniversary of January 6. “Because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be, I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”

Though fewer pundits predict that Democrats will be able to retake the Senate, the idea is gradually becoming more plausible as Trump continues to alienate voters. His potential conviction following impeachment, however, would remain a tall order, as it would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.

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MAGA factions 'fighting for control' as Trump 'smells like a lame duck': former RNC spox

Former Vice President Mike Pence's think tank, Advancing American Freedom (AAF) has lately been poaching officials from the conservative Heritage Foundation. However, Tim Miller — a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee — is predicting the fight will not be between Pence and extremist MAGA, but between two MAGA extremes.

AAF is providing a landing pad for former Heritage members in the wake of a mass departure over the role of right-wing influencers promoting antisemitic or racist views and other extremist ideas. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts kicked off the flight of staffers after releasing a video defending far-right pundit Tucker Carlson’s friendly October interview with Nick Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist who has previously praised Adolf Hitler. Roberts' video sparked controversy inside Heritage, prompting him to later apologize for it.

During a Tuesday MS NOW segment, Miller said the fight will not likely be between Pence’s nonprofit and Fuentes' camp, but between separate groups of MAGA extremists.

“The unifying element that brought everybody in MAGA together was that they wanted Donald Trump to be president. And Donald Trump is, in a lot of ways, sometimes incoherent on policy ... And so, it allowed everybody to sort of fit under one roof. And if they had a disagreement, whatever daddy Trump said they went along with.”

“Now as Trump starts to smell like a lame duck, everybody wants to shape the future of the movement and the way that they see fit. There are obviously a lot of ... traditional conservatives that held their nose and stuck around for Donald Trump. And they want the party to kind of go back to how it used to be, but there are people kind of new to the Republican movement that hate the old Republican Party and want it to be even more populist, more nationalist, and look more like a European far-right nationalist party,” Miller said. “… And so, all of it's like a Game of Thrones situation now, with all of them are fighting for control.”

Miller said “it's interesting” that Pence and his more traditional conservative group is trying to gather support and infrastructure, but he said he’s “skeptical that would work.”

“I think the real fight is what we saw at AmericaFest, which was between a MAGA establishment, like a hybrid of the old Republican Party and the new [party], with some even further right figures that want basically full nationalism, closed borders, no more support of Israel, embracing conspiracy theories. And the fight to me seems to be on that turf.”

Watch the segment below:

- YouTube youtu.be

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'Unmoored from conservative ideals': Pence rips into MAGA for having no 'moral foundation'

Former Vice President Mike Pence is sounding the alarm over what he describes as a dangerous shift within the conservative movement, warning that it is at risk of losing its philosophical foundation. In an essay for National Affairs, Pence cautioned that the American right is being overtaken by a force antithetical to traditional conservatism.

“The question for today’s conservatives is clear: Will we remain a party of enduring principles, or will we succumb to populism unmoored from conservative ideals?” Pence wrote in the piece, co-authored with a founder of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

The essay laments what Pence calls an “existential identity crisis” among conservatives and criticizes the movement’s turn toward “populist fervor” and the “transformation into the anti-woke movement.”

“A political movement once united by a commitment to limited government, moral order, and a robust defense of American ideals now appears fractured, its purpose clouded by populist grievances and ideological drift,” he wrote.

He continued: "By the time [President] Donald Trump won his second term, much post-election analysis correctly framed his victory not as a triumph of conservative ideals, but as a mere repudiation of a decadent and debauched Democratic Party.”

“While such opposition can attract allies and can even win elections when Republicans are out of power, it cannot serve as a movement’s moral foundation. Conservatism cannot be defined solely by what it isn’t,” the former vice president added.

While Pence stops short of naming Trump — his onetime running mate turned political adversary after the events of Jan. 6, 2021—the critique echoes familiar themes from Trump’s post-presidency agenda.

Last month, Pence said during an interview that it was disheartening to see Trump revert to the same kind of rhetoric in his second term that had contributed to the 2021 Capitol riot.

In an interview with NBC, Pence also voiced criticism of Trump’s tariff strategy and various foreign policy choices.

“The initial reciprocal tariffs that he unveiled would be the largest peacetime tax hike on the American people in the history of this country,” Pence said at the time, referencing the broad tariffs Trump introduced on the nation’s major trading partners in early April.

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Mike Pence receives award for defending democracy from Trump — without mentioning his name

Politico reports former Vice President Mike Pence received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award this weekend for his refusal to join President Donald Trump’s attempt to buck democracy and remain in office after losing the 2020 election. The award recognizes Pence “for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021,” the JFK Library Foundation said.

Four years ago, Trump pressured Pence to reject legitimate election results from swing states where Trump falsely claimed the vote was tainted by fraud. Pence refused, and a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, whipped into a fury by Trump’s angry social media posts.

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” Trump wrote on “X”, driving Pence to hide with his family and his security detail.

Despite calls from the mob to “hang Mike Pence,” Pence rejected the Secret Service’s advice to leave the Capitol and stayed to complete the ceremonial election certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

Pence told the audience at the award ceremony that “by God’s grace I did my duty that day to support the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States of America.”

“Jan. 6 was a tragic day but it became a triumph of freedom. History will record that our institutions held,” he said in his speech. “Leaders in both chambers, in both political parties reconvened the very same day and finished democracy’s work under the Constitution.”

Pence said he still disagrees with his Republican Party on tariffs and his “belief that America is the leader of the free world and must stand with Ukraine until the Russian invasion is repelled and a just and lasting peace is secured.” However, the Daily Beast noted Pence took care not to mention Trump's name, stopping himself at the importance of defending the Constitution--mere hours after Trump refused to promise not to defy it.

JFK’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy presented the award along with JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg.

Read the full Politico story here.

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'Completely out of step': Mike Pence’s org comes out swinging against Trump Cabinet pick

Former Vice President Mike Pence may no longer be President-elect Donald Trump's right-hand man, but he's not quite done with politics yet.

That's according to a Wednesday article in Politico, which reported that Pence's organization, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), is waging a campaign aimed at Republican senators urging them to reject one of Trump's high-profile Cabinet picks. AAF is setting its sights on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his previous positions in favor of abortion.

AAF wrote in a statement that Kennedy is "pro-abortion," which the group argues is "completely out of step with the strong, pro-life record of the first Trump Administration."

"While RFK Jr. has made certain overtures to pro-life leaders that he would be mindful of their concerns at HHS, there is little reason for confidence at this time," AAF's letter continued.

AAF's letter advocating against Kennedy's confirmation comes on the heels of a remark Pence made in December, when he lamented that RFK Jr. was "the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history." And so far, the president-elect's team has remained relatively quiet regarding RFK Jr.'s past comments in favor of abortion.

When Kennedy was fielding his own presidential bid as an independent, he had conflicting positions on abortion. At first, he backed a 15-week ban on the procedure, but then did a one-eighty and said all pregnant individuals should have the right to an abortion, "even if it's full-term." He's since walked that statement back saying that he only supports abortion restrictions late into a pregnancy.

As Politico reported, HHS has significant sway over abortion in the United States as it provides funding for women's health nonprofit Planned Parenthood. HHS also has jurisdiction over abortion drug Mifepristone, which has been used for medication abortions with FDA approval for decades. The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 has called for the enforcement of the Comstock Act of 1873 as a means of restricting access to abortion drugs like Mifepristone.

Click here to read Politico's article in full.

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'Karen Pence is all of us': Internet cheers former VP’s wife for refusing to acknowledge Trump

One awkward interaction between President-elect Donald Trump and former Second Lady Karen Pence at the state funeral of President Jimmy Carter is going viral.

The Indianapolis Star reported Thursday that while Trump and his wife, Melania were walking past Vice Presidents Al Gore, Mike Pence and his wife, the spouse of Trump's former vice president — who declined to endorse him in 2024 — stayed seated and didn't even acknowledge the Trumps. Karen Pence snubbed the incoming First Family despite both Gore and her husband rising from their seats to shake his hand.

Former Republican Ron Filipkowski — who is now the editor-in-chief of liberal news site MeidasTouch — posted video of the snub to Bluesky, writing: "Karen Pence wants nothing to do with Donald or Melania Trump."

"Karen Pence has more of a spine than her entire party," retired attorney Michael B. Lehroff wrote in response to the video.

The former second lady's coldness to the incoming president could be due to Trump egging on the mob of his supporters that laid siege to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, erected a gallows outside and roamed the halls chanting "hang Mike Pence!" Pence was escorted out of the Senate chamber by Secret Service as the mob broke past police barricades after refusing to stop the certification of Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden. Rather than call off the mob, Trump instead tweeted that his vice president "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution."

Olivia Troye — a former national security aide for Vice President Pence — praised her former boss' wife on Bluesky, writing: "Karen Pence is all of us right now having to stomach Trump sitting that close to them. Her face when he walked in said it all." Rolling Stone reporter Asawin Suebsaeng was also shocked at the interaction, especially when contrasting it with how Trump was received by other dignitaries, like former President Barack Obama.

"Am I getting this right? Is the only one being openly rude to Trump at this funeral… Karen Pence?" Suebsaeng skeeted.

"At least one of the Pences has some cojones," writer Rebecca Bodenheimer commented.

Karen Pence wasn't the only celebrity present at the funeral to decline a handshake from the president-elect. Former Republican President George W. Bush also refused to shake Trump's hand, despite warmly welcoming former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton to the ceremony.

Watch the video of Karen Pence's snub below, or by clicking this link.

Karen Pence wants nothing to do with Donald or Melania Trump.

[image or embed]
— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) January 9, 2025 at 10:13 AM

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'We can never go back': Anti-Trump Republican says reforming GOP now 'off the table'

In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's campaign, no group may be more politically homeless than anti-Trump Republicans.

A Saturday report in Politico detailed how some of the most prominent Republicans who opposed Trump during the 2024 election are considering the future of their party as Trump recasts it in his image. This past election cycle not only returned Trump to power in spite of opposition from lifelong Republicans like former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), but also proved to be the one in which Trump's family took over the GOP's national campaign apparatus with his daughter-in-law Lara elected as its co-chair.

Now, some Republicans are wondering whether there's room for them in the GOP at all given the MAGA-led takeover of the party. Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who was elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave and ousted two years later, says any hope of reforming the Republican Party to go back to traditional conservative philosophy is now "off the table."

“It’s down to two options,” Walsh told Politico. “Productively throw rocks at the administration — kind of be like a group in exile and from a distance do what we can to damage MAGA, knowing we can never go back — or become Democrats.”

Even though she endorsed Trump in the general election, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has since come out against some of Trump's more controversial Cabinet picks like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the potential new Health and Human Services secretary and Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard. Haley — a foreign policy hawk — accused Gabbard in a recent episode of her radio show of being a "Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer." And she called RFK Jr. a "liberal Democrat" with "no background in healthcare."

Former Vice President Mike Pence has also come out against Kennedy due to his position on abortion. Pence called RFK Jr.'s nomination to lead U.S. health agencies "deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades." Now, these Republicans are putting their hopes in the hands of more moderate members of the Senate Republican conference to put the kibosh on Trump's most extreme nominees. This includes Senators like Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

“That is the only way for Trump to be checked … the sort of in-group moderates, the people who are members of the Republican Party who won’t give Trump carte blanche and who will push back against the most damaging things,” Sarah Longwell, publisher of anti-Trump conservative website The Bulwark, told Politico. “You’re going to need people in the Republican Party to not cave completely to Trump.”

Click here to read Politico's article in full.

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'There’s no one else': Ex-Pence staffer speaking at DNC urges him to publicly oppose Trump

Former President Donald Trump's selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his 2024 running mate served as a reminder to many of what happened to former Vice President Mike Pence, who went from being Trump's right-hand man to MAGA's public enemy #1. Now, one of his former staffers is calling on him to campaign against the ex-president.

In a recent interview with CNN, former Pence advisor Olivia Troye – who is speaking on night three of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago tonight — urged Pence to speak out against his old boss ahead of the 2024 election. She told host Jim Acosta that given how Pence was treated by the MAGA movement on January 6, it would be "amazing" if the former Indiana governor was at the DNC this week with other anti-Trump Republicans.

"There's no one else that has lived what Donald Trump and the danger that he is, that he poses, more than him," Troye said. "I have seen him in varied moments of crisis where he had to navigate how we were going to handle Donald Trump and how we were gonna not let him derail things that we were trying to do when we were trying to help the American people, especially during times of Covid."

"Again, in mass shooting situations that were actually hate crimes and domestic terrorism ... how do you message in a moment that requires true leadership to the American people, while also countering the fact that it's the person sitting in the Oval Office at the time who's actually driving some of the hate crimes and some of these incidents that are happening in the country by the rhetoric that he's using?" She added.

Pence famously declined Trump's request to interfere with Congress' certification of the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021. It was later revealed that Pence sought the counsel of former Vice President Dan Quayle on how he could legally do so, only for Quayle to tell him that the role of the vice president in the Congressional certification of election results was only ceremonial and that he had no Constitutional authority to declare any result invalid.

Still, as a violent mob of Trump supporters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol and chanted "hang Mike Pence," Trump angrily tweeted that Pence lacked the "courage" to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The outgoing vice president was rushed out of the Capitol by his Secret Service detail while the mob that erected a gallows outside of the capitol roamed the halls of Congress searching for Pence.

The events of January 6 were likely the chief contributor to Pence's decision to not endorse Trump when Fox News host Martha McCallum asked him about it in March. He has so far not endorsed the Democratic ticket, and has said he plans to stay out of the 2024 election entirely.

Earlier this month, he condemned the GOP's "growing abandonment of our allies on the world stage." And while he said he wouldn't be endorsing President Joe Biden, he specified in an interview with far-right activist Eric Erickson that he "could never vote for Kamala Harris for President of the United States."

Troye will be speaking Wednesday night at the United Center in downtown Chicago, along with former Georgia Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan. Both anti-Trump Republicans will be sharing the main stage with prominent Democrats like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former President Bill Clinton and Minnesota Governor (and 2024 vice presidential nominee) Tim Walz.

Watch Troye's segment on CNN below, or by clicking this link.

— (@)

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

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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Pence’s $10 million spending spree will help Trump campaign on tax cuts for the rich

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is not endorsing Donald Trump, is spending $10 million in an effort to preserve the Trump tax cuts that largely benefitted ultra-wealthy millionaires and billionaires, which will help his ex-boss’s re-election efforts.

Advancing American Freedom, Pence’s political advocacy group, “is launching a $10 million campaign to push for an extension of the Trump-era tax cuts, which are set to expire next year and will likely play a key role in the 2024 election,” according to The Hill.

President Joe Biden has said he wants to eliminate Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for those making over $400,000, NBC News reports The tax cuts have added $1 to $2 trillion dollars to the national debt.

“A CBO report in May estimated that extending the provisions of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would increase deficits by nearly $5 trillion into 2034,” the Associated Press reports, adding that Pence’s group is “press[ing] conservatives not to stray from the fight before the November election.”

Pence’s group also “released a 13-page blueprint Thursday with arguments being made to Capitol Hill and to voters in swing states, particularly in those that could decide control of the Senate.”

“As of May 2020, the Tax Policy Center estimated the tax cuts would add between $1 and $2 trillion to the federal debt by 2025. The Center for American Progress estimated the bill will have cost roughly $1.7 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2023 on June 30,” according to a 2023 USA Today fact check on the Trump tax cuts.

“The benefits of the 2017 tax changes were overwhelmingly skewed toward the wealthy,” the Center for American Progress reported in April. It provided “the largest tax cuts to the very wealthy,” which “failed to trickle down to ordinary workers.”

“The most significant piece of legislation former President Donald Trump signed during his first term had a dramatic cut in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent as its centerpiece,” Center for American Progress Action reported last week in “Trump’s $50 Billion Tax Giveaway to the 100 Largest Corporations.”

“That corporate tax cut did not trickle down to ordinary workers but cost $1.3 trillion and helped fuel a record $1 trillion in stock buybacks the year after it passed.”

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