cover of episode Did Mike Pence Ever Have a Shot?

Did Mike Pence Ever Have a Shot?

2023/11/2
logo of podcast Somebody's Gotta Win with Tara Palmeri

Somebody's Gotta Win with Tara Palmeri

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Tara Palmeri discusses the current state of the primary campaign and the recent surge of Nikki Haley, while mentioning that Mike Pence has decided to suspend his campaign for president.

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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. It's been a sleepy primary campaign. Not a lot has really happened in the sense that, OK, the debates are raucous, they're hard to watch, they're cringey, etc. The candidates are pretty much staying in place, dropping, you know,

The only person who surged recently is Nikki Haley, who went up 10 points in the poll in Iowa, but she's still 30 points below Trump. No one is within earshot of Trump right now. DeSantis continues to drop. There hasn't really been the thud of a real dropout out of the race, like someone who's a serious player. But that happened this past weekend when Mike Pence decided he was no longer going to run for president. It wasn't so much that Mike Pence ever really had a strong shot or was making gains, but

I think anyone you would talk to would say he was having a hard time finding love anywhere he went. Even in Iowa, where there's a really strong evangelical border base. It's just that he's a major figure in the Republican Party, former vice president, governor of Indiana. He had the credentials, and yet he didn't even make it to Iowa. And I think it kind of tells you everything you need to know about the state of the party, what happens to a politician who challenges Trump's election lies.

And really, what kind of republicanism or conservatism, you could say, Mike Pence is trying to push? Is it the party from the past? Has the party moved on from him? In this episode, I check in with one of his top strategists, Mark Short, for an autopsy report.

I wanted to know if he ever thought there was a real path. Was this a way to sort of correct the record, fix his legacy? Or did he think that there were actually voters on the ground who were ready to pick Mike Pence? Were there a universe of voters out there who were anti-Trump enough to kind of forgive Mike Pence to be a part of the administration? And could he win over any pro-Trump voters? It doesn't seem like that was the case. He was met with a lot of hostility on the trail by Trump supporters.

I also wanted to know what's Mike Pence going to do next. Will he endorse another candidate? Will that help the candidate or hurt them? If they're trying to go after Trump voters, will he go off quietly into the sunset? Or will he keep waging this war against Trump's siren of populism in favor of the long lost ways of Reagan? Who's going to give him a platform to do that? Will he actually endorse Trump as the nominee if he ends up being the nominee, which it looks like he will be?

That's something I asked Mark Short about since Mark and Pence will both be testifying against Trump in the spring. I can tell you this. Mike Pence is walking off the campaign trail with about $620,000 in debt. So it might be hard to sort of stage any of these events in which he continues to make the case. But around D.C., Mark Short is known as a top strategist and someone who's been with Mike Pence since 2008.

So we kick it off with some analysis of the state of the race and the latest polls in Iowa, since Pence's exit really didn't cause much of a ground shift. So, Mark, you go way back with Mike Pence all the way to December of 2008. You followed him to the White House. You were his White House chief of staff. And on the campaign trail, you were basically his chief strategist. You've always sort of been his right-hand man. And he did...

you know, drop out of the campaign this week or suspended his campaign. But first, I want to dig into the candidates who are still on the trail and this new poll out of Iowa. It's the NBC Des Moines Register poll. It's considered one of the top in the business. And it was interesting in the sense that

Ron DeSantis, whose entire campaign has been sort of, I guess, built up on the idea of momentum and charging forward in Iowa because that's what they've been staking it on. He actually dropped three points in Iowa and Nikki Haley gained 10 points. Trump, of course, is at 43 percent. He picked

picked up a point. This is the same that he's been consistently over the past few months. I just wanted to get what you make of this. Do you think this is bad news for Team DeSantis, which has been banking on Iowa and their whole strategy has been about like upward momentum? And what do you make of the gains for Nikki Haley? It doesn't even mean anything. Is she just so far away and there's no path? I'm curious to hear what you think about the polls.

Well, I think that, for starters, in the national picture, it seems that with each new indictment, the more and more Republicans have rallied around Donald Trump to the detriment of the rest of the field.

I think that for DeSantis, I wouldn't worry so much about a minus three in the last poll to today's poll. That's within margin of error. I do think that moving forward, though, November, December is typically the time that Iowans begin to make decisions. And I think they cherish the fact that they're the first caucus in the nation, and they cherish the fact that they want people to come to Iowa and make their case. So they're often very late deciders. So I think that...

Now's the time to begin kind of trying to build momentum heading into January 1st. But I don't think there's any doubt that Donald Trump leads the field decisively. And I think it's even more decisive nationally than it is in Iowa.

Right. But what do you make of Nikki Haley's surge? Who is she pulling from? I think that Nikki Haley's surge is really more of a media bubble and it's more of a donor bubble. But I don't think that that's inconsequential. It's good to have positive media coverage. And if it builds a sense from donors that that's where we should go, obviously money matters. And so...

I do think she's benefiting from that. I don't really think there's been as much of a bump in many of the national polls or a couple of national polls out today that had her at 6%, 7%. And so, yeah, it's more important to be doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire. But I still feel that I haven't really seen a broad sense of evidence that this so-called boomload is really playing out among voters. I think it is among donors and media, which, again, is not inconsequential.

Right. But I mean, 10 points is 10 points. Granted, it is so far away from Trump, but it's still 10 points gained that none of her, you know, opponents have. Yeah. They seem to be going down. Whether that's an outlier or whether that's truly 10 points. I haven't seen that verified in other Iowa polls. But again, that's

it's helping her to, I think, rally a lot of the donor community, which in many cases, the donor community, I think at first was with DeSantis. I think many of them have soured on DeSantis. We're looking for another option to run against Trump. And I do think that those sorts of news cycles really benefit her. Okay. So just speaking of the donor community, do you think that they will actually make a difference in terms of turning this into a two-person race? Do you need more money or does that not even matter anymore? Yeah.

I think that obviously you need money, but Tara, I think what we've seen to date is that probably the rest of the field, non-Trump candidates have raised and spent, I think about $175 million. And there hasn't seemed to have made a difference as far as impacting Trump's vote. Trump's vote has only grown. So it's arguable that in this cycle, perhaps it doesn't matter as much as previous cycles. I think

DeSantis has probably spent and raised close to $100 million and dropped 20 points. I think Tim Scott and Nikki have both spent tens of millions of dollars, and I don't think there's really a significant impact there. So it does appear that many in our party are looking for a rematch with Trump versus Biden. I mean, 175 million over eight candidates, though. So if it was...

you know, 200 million, three candidates, maybe four candidates might be different. Well, I mean, you say 100,000,000 over eight candidates, but really it's the three of them that raised the vast majority of that. And Doug Burgum. You know, Doug and Vivek, they're raising money on their own. That's part of it. They're spending a lot of their own money, but I think in many cases they were spending the money to qualify for the debate stage when they were really typically cases with donors who were to make a case against Trump.

Oh, so you mean $175 million raised by donors, not including people who are putting their own money forward? Okay, got it. Okay, so do you think this is bad news for the DeSantis team that's banking on Iowa? Do you think they still have a shot? I think that relative to the rest of the field, I think that the media wants to write off DeSantis prematurely. But I confess that looking at when you include Trump in it, it seems that over the last several months, Trump's lead has only grown.

And so I think that it's going to be very difficult to see what will change that dynamic at this point. It seems that with each new indictment, more and more Republican voters have said, you know, we owe it to them to stick with them and come back to a side. And I think that that overshadows what the other campaigns are doing. And certainly, his legal travails are going to stay in the news for the next couple of months before you get to Iowa.

I don't know if it changes. I don't think it changes before probably the primary season is well underway. Whether or not it changes once he's convicted, that's a different question. But that won't happen until long after he's probably secured enough votes. Yeah, it won't probably happen until spring after actually Mike Pence is slated to testify. And perhaps you will also be testifying in the spring, right? Yeah.

So we'll see how that shakes out. What would we what would it be like if our nominee was convicted going into the convention? I guess the delegates could decide that there's been less coverage. I think there's been less coverage of that, truly, because I think that's obviously an unprecedented circumstance. Now, would Republican delegates take a nomination away from him at that point? Probably not. But does it create a more more controversial convention? I think it does.

Does it like it might give the party or at least the RNC more power? Do you think the delegates are independent or supplicant enough to the party or do you think they could twist their arms or I don't know? What do you what do you get gather from Republican delegates? The party is not supplicant to Trump, too. I mean, I think so. I don't I don't think there'd be a lot of people at the convention looking to deprive Republicans.

Trump with a nomination at that point. But I still think you probably have some delegates who would say, wait a second, is this really the best candidate for forward against Joe Biden? Who I think many of us view as a weak candidate. - Right. I mean, I think most of the people in the party would see that. I mean, would that finally be the moment when Trump, they give up on Trump when he's behind bars?

It's hard to suggest what the moment would be at this point. There's nothing that's turned voters away inside the Republican Party yet. And whether a conviction does, I don't know. But I do think it's a different dynamic than an indictment is. I think in particular, you know, look, we laugh about it, but I do think that the frivolous lawsuit that was brought first in New York did allow Trump to paint all the others as equally politically motivated.

Totally. And the other issue I would say on your end is that a lot of these candidates, they stood by Trump when all of these indictments came out. They didn't differentiate between them. They said this is Biden's Justice Department going after Donald Trump and perhaps they shouldn't have done that. I mean, I wonder if you have any regrets about defending Trump on any of these trials in terms of like Pence's statements.

Actually, I think if you go back to Pence's very announcement speech in June in Iowa, he specifically made the case as to why Trump should not be reelected. That was his announcement speech. And so I know that there's a lot in the media who were comfortable or used to watching the vice president defend the president. And that has carried over their coverage. I do not think that's the way that Mike Pence ran his campaign.

I think quite specifically, he was making the case against why Donald Trump should be reelected as president. I think Chris Christie has done the same. But I don't think that right now inside our party, there's a receptive audience to that. It doesn't mean it's not an important point to make for historical benefit, but that's not where the primary voters are right now.

Okay, so I can't remember off the top of my head, I'll be honest, whether Mike Pence has come out forcefully against Trump in any of the following indictments. But I know that others in the race have just blamed Joe Biden, sort of going along with the Joe Biden Justice Department, like going along with Trump's narrative. To be fair, to be fair, Tara, Mike's case was he did think the New York one was the most frivolous. I mean, the reality is that...

Anyone who gave Trump a loan would have gone and done their own due diligence about the valuation of the Postal numbers. And so it seems kind of silly that they brought that case. And I think he's always said on January 6th, I think it should be left to the voters to decide. Having said that, he very carefully said that anybody who puts himself above the Constitution should never be reelected president. And he made that case on many occasions.

It's less about, in his case, wanting to pin your hopes on a legal process. He wanted to take the case to the voters to say why he feels that Donald Trump is not fit to serve again.

This is a bit of a tangent, but does Mike Pence agree with these cases that are being brought against Donald Trump trying to keep him off the ballot for trying to defy the Constitution on, you know, January 6th? No. I think there's one in Michigan. No. He thinks that he should still be on the ballot. He clearly said that, explained why he does not think Donald Trump should be elected president again, but he thinks that should be left to the voters, not to have person try to take him off the ballot. Okay, so...

What's your sense of the election? Like, do you think that this will come down to two candidates, at least by Iowa? Or do you think that it'll be a multi-candidate field in Iowa?

I think it'll probably be down to just a couple of candidates. Whether or not it's two or three, I don't know. But everybody, I think, wants to say, we need to win on the field. We need to narrow it down. Two things on that. One, the marketplace does that. If you're not able to raise money, there's not much ability for you to continue on. I think that several candidates will face that between now and January 15th. Second, though, I think there's a sense within the donor community that is

We need to narrow it down so we can have one candidate versus Trump. And I think that is conventional wisdom. But I think in this case, I think it's pretty soft mark analysis. As you saw DeSantis' numbers go from 30 to the teens, most of that number went back to Trump. It didn't go to the rest of the field. And so I think.

candidates fall out of this race is going to create more of an inevitability that Trump will be the nominee. And so while I think there's a big push for donors to try to feel like, hey, let's manage this field, let's be the ones choosing who can survive or not, the reality is I think that is only going to benefit Donald Trump by the time we get down to two candidates. Where do Pence voters go?

Who do you think they go to? I think it'll be a mix. I don't think they're monolithic. I think the reality is that... They're not going to Trump, though. You know, look, I think if it's Trump versus Biden, I think that some of them will tear. I don't pretend to suggest to you... Oh, no, no, I'm talking about in a primary. Primary? I mean, I think that there's probably a number of candidates that probably it'll be spread among.

OK. And Nikki Haley, like, can she win without taking lean Trump voters or, you know, is there any way for her to be in this race? Well, the dynamics has shown, as we just talked about, the sense is his numbers fell and went back to Trump continues to show that if he were to fall out of the race, most of the existing voters still have to go back to Trump. They wouldn't go to Nikki.

And so I think that's a complicated math problem for them, is that they want to be the last one standing, of course. But as they do, it seems that the rest of the field continues to diminish. I don't think it's going to benefit Trump. But there is a universe, at least this poll shows that there is a pretty big chunk of the, I guess, electorate and primary voters in Iowa that are open to other candidates besides Donald Trump.

I think there are in Iowa. I think Iowa is unique. Again, it's continued to show more undecided voters. I don't think that that's where others are. But to your point, if Trump were to underperform expectations in Iowa, I think you build a narrative that says, hey, look, he's vulnerable. And I think that is a danger because the expectations are so sky high for him at this point that everybody

is going to run away with it. So if Nicky were even to finish within 10 or 15 points of him, then I think it generates this notion, hey, wait, this isn't a runaway. So I think the expectation game is difficult. But having said that, you know as well as I do that when you get to an Iowa caucus, it's not going in behind a polling booth and casting your vote privately. I think there is an intimidation factor amongst a lot of

And so if you're in a caucus and you're basically having to announce your support for somebody else, I think that's a little bit harder if you're a non-Trump delegate as opposed to being a Trump delegate. So, you know, I think that's going to be a factor, too, when we get to January 15th.

Interesting. The intimidation of the Trump voter, the PAC mentality, right? That's the, that's a whole other thing. And they're not very good at counting ballots and counting votes in Iowa anyway. Right. We know that. What do you think is Trump's ceiling? Like what's his floor? Like who do you think is up for grabs? I think it's a pretty narrow ceiling floor. I think his floor is actually pretty high and his ceiling is pretty low. And yeah,

27% floor, right? In what? In primary? I think it's higher than that. Oh, okay. In Iowa, I was thinking. In Iowa, yeah. That's probably fair in Iowa. Yeah. Yeah. And his ceiling is probably... What he's at right now, 43%, you think? I think he can go higher. I do. Amongst Republican caucus goers, yeah, I think he can go higher than that. Okay. So...

When you were running or at least advising Mike Pence, what did you see his path? What was his path to victory?

Well, I think he was always going to be a very steep climb. And I think that sometimes I don't want to suggest in any way that Mike's intention wasn't to win. It was to win. But I think there are other purposes for Mike's candidacy, too. And part of that was he wanted to set the record straight about January 6th, which I think he has succeeded in large part in doing. And secondly, he wanted to give a warning to our party.

You know, in 2016, Tara, when Trump asked him to be vice president, Trump was going to conservatives and basically making a pledge that says, if you nominate me, I'm going to appoint people like Mike Pence to be on my team. I'm going to become pro-life. I'm going to appoint judges. Here's the 21 that federal society wants me to. I'll choose from that list. I'm going to rebuild the military. I'm going to embrace this tax plan.

There's nothing like that that he offers today. There's nothing he's offering to conservatives. And so the campaign is one of grievances. It's basically saying, I voted for you for four years. Now I expect you to support me and help me fight my legal battles. But the policies they put out at this point are, hey, let's have a 10% tariff across the globe on every good coming to the United States of America. That'd be the highest tax increase that's been proposed in generations.

We're basically saying we're going to walk away from international commitments. He's criticized his own justices. He's walked away from his position for life. And so there is no longer a promise for conservatives. I think Mike wanted to make the case to Republican voters, be careful with this populist fascination you have going on. There's no doubt that Trump brought populist flair in 2016, but it was built on a conservative foundation of those policies. Today, it's not. Today, it's looking to destroy the same foundations. And I think

He wanted to make sure that that warning was given to our party about the direction that he's headed.

I'm going to push back a little bit in the sense that Mike Pence did do a lot for Donald Trump's bid in 2016, right? Picking Mike Pence really helped him with evangelical voters. But now evangelicals seem to be just sold on Trump, regardless of what Mike Pence says. And a lot of these other groups, it's almost like he sort of gave him the golden ticket that he had and validated him. And he can't, it seems like the campaign has shown he can't really take it back. And I wonder what you make of that. Why, why,

Mike Pence hasn't been able to kind of change minds for people who at one point, you know, listened to him and thought, I'll give Trump a chance. Yeah, I don't I don't take that as pushback. I largely agree with what you're saying. I think that in some ways, Mike credentialed him in 2016. But the reality is that Trump also governs a conservative. And so he won over conservatives over those four years of his presidency. To his credit, we still we still take pride in a lot of those policies.

But the difference is what he's offering in the future is very different. So I think you're right. He's won those people over. But I think Mike is trying to say, hey, wait a second. You know, at first we were promising and we delivered on conservative principles. But where you're looking to go is no longer a conservative path. And that, I think, is the one he wants to give to our party.

But perhaps those voters are having nostalgia for what they had before, and they're not actually paying attention to what he's suggesting now. But here's the other problem, I would say, with the Pence path or the Pence campaign was that it was really hard for him to find...

people to listen to him anywhere. Right. I mean, it was, it seemed pretty brutal the way that these Trump supporters were treating him. And then it seemed like the anti-Trump crowd didn't really want to hear from him either. I mean, what was your experience on the trail? Was it felt kind of ugly sometimes? I think that that was a little bit of a media characterization that I think that some of your, your old friends in Politico would write that way. But my experience was honestly, um, on the ground was different that, uh, that he was, um,

He was encouraged by a lot of the reception he gave, he received. But I think your point, too, though, is a fair one, which is the people who were never Trump, they're going to feel like, look, for four years you validated them. And the people who are always Trump are like, well, I can't to this day.

or accept the fact that you followed the Constitution on January 6th instead of what Donald Trump wanted you to do. And so there's no doubt that that was always, I said, going to be an uphill climb for him, but it was still important to give the warnings. And while you might say that people aren't listening to it today, it's still important sometimes to put down that marker because people will come back to it and say, you know what? We kind of did go down a different path than what the tradition is of our conservative movement.

But then it's too late. So it's like the campaign feels like it was a messaging campaign, but not so much like, I don't know. I'm not going to accept this too late. I don't know. I don't know when, when that will be received, but I do think the pendulum swings back. I think it's important to have made your case.

Some people argue that, you know, Mike Pence dropping out of the race before Iowa just reinforces the view that the primary voter, the GOP primary voter has proven again that this is not the party of Reagan anymore. That, you know, cutting entitlements, you know, defending our allies like this is just not the Republican Party. And that that was the message of Mike Pence. They rejected it. He's out.

we have to move on beyond that. What do you make of that? I think there's some truth. I think the party has changed, but again, that's what I think felt his importance was to warn the party that we've always been this conservative foundation. If we go off away from that foundation, we will crumble. And I think that's what he was, he was, he was looking to say, so yeah, I agree with you. The party has changed. Um, but, uh,

But it doesn't mean it's not important to lay down your markers about why you think the conservative principles that we all adhere to for generations were important to our victories. And I think he would tell you that the same policies that helped us to defeat a weak Democrat and lift up Ronald Reagan would be the same policies that apply today with the most success. But I agree with you. It seems our party's going a different direction. Okay, but

Clearly, Mike Pence was on a mission to sort of like correct the path, correct history to, you know, warn to message. To me, what would seem like a very powerful use of his position would be to endorse in the race after stepping out. Do you think he'll endorse one of the primary candidates? Yeah.

I don't want to speak for him yet on that. My belief is that if he does, it won't be anytime soon. And in all candor, Tara, I'm not I understand the point about feeling that that there's a that where Trump is and we want alternative to that. But I'm not sure that there's somebody who embodies that same right conservative that's left in the field.

Oh, OK. You don't think any of them really do? Any of the viable challengers? I think there's different gradations of that. But I think that, you know, it's clear that Ron DeSantis came up as a conservative. But I think that there's plenty of evidence that his governor, he's embraced the notion that you can use the power of government to attack your enemies. I think that's

That's something that we as a party always fought against. And it's something that if you believe in limited government conservatism, that's anathema to you. Well, Trump was doing that while in office or at least attempting to, right?

I think that there's no doubt that probably Trump articulated that. I think it's harder to find evidence that he actually had people in power that would be willing to execute those plans for him. But yeah, I think that he had people around him with guardrails, which probably won't be around the next time. That's what he's articulating is what he wants. That's why he wants to be reelected for exactly that purpose. And I think that's what our party is following.

So Pence was on a warning campaign in a way about that. But I didn't really get that from him when I was listening to him on the trail or even at the debate. He wasn't really warning like Trump 2.0 is going to be freaking scary because that's like that's not what I heard. And you could correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, I encourage you to go back to the speech you gave about two months ago at St. Anselm College, which was billed as specifically conservatism versus populism and where we're headed as a party. And I'd encourage you to read it again.

Okay, so he's basically talking about the tyranny of populism, but not exactly saying like, Trump is going to employ these lawyers who bend the law to his will, and he's going to go after all of his enemies. And, you know, it's going to be a hateful, rage-filled, you know, vendetta against the

everyone who's ever crossed him, the Justice Department will be his weapon. Like, I haven't heard that explicitly from Mike Pence. Like, democracy will be dead. You know, that's why I push back. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. He does talk about the tyranny of populism, but it doesn't quite feel as forceful or as at least...

That may be the way you want to hear it, but that's really not the way Mike Pence speaks. So I would encourage you again to go back and actually listen to his words and what he said. I mean, he would know better than anyone what Donald Trump is capable of doing. Chris Christie, when he speaks, speaks like that.

I mean, maybe because we're both from New Jersey, that's how we articulate our ideas and thoughts. But he definitely would lay out, this is what Donald Trump will do. I did not hear that from Mike Pence. I know that's not a style. I've traveled with you guys when you were... He's a very nice person when he was vice president. He's calm, mild-mannered, soft-spoken. That's not his style. But I wonder if he would have...

If he would have gotten more traction, then again, like Chris Christie really isn't getting that much traction either on the anti-Trump, in the anti-Trump lane, except in New Hampshire. So I don't know if it works anyway. I think there was a lot of media who wanted Mike Pence to attack Donald Trump more frequently. I feel like Mike Pence feels like for four years we actually partnered together really well. He felt like they were friends.

And so I don't think he was looking to run a vengeance campaign against Donald Trump. He was trying to say from a policy perspective, this is a warning to our party about where it's going. And here's why conservative principles have made our party strong and where we should be founded. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been allowed of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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I'm going to go back to one thing that you said earlier when I asked you if you think he'll endorse a primary candidate. And you said not DeSantis because he's conservative and that the others don't really seem to have the same sort of like Reagan, Republican viewpoint or, I don't know, policy stances. But to me, Nikki Haley probably has the most similar, you know, outlook on foreign policy,

domestic issues. I mean, she seems to be the most similar to Mike Pence than the others. He wouldn't endorse her? Does he have like some beef with her? To be careful, I didn't say he wouldn't endorse DeSantis. What I said, I don't think he's going to endorse anybody soon. But to the believing there aren't other Reagan conservatives in the race, that was an example as to why. And I just don't think that there are not other Reagan conservatives left in this primary. She's probably the closest, I would say. Would you agree with that?

I don't know that I would. I think that, you know, she is she very effectively spoke about members of Congress being on the stage at all. You know, spending went up by 20 some percent when she was governor of South Carolina, imposed significant gas taxes on the people of South Carolina. I think there's plenty there's plenty that would.

They would question whether these are true convictions or if she's looking more as somebody who's in this field who looks at opportunities. But I think that, look, Tara, I think that she and Mike Pence have a friendship and I think that anyone. And so I don't want to speak for him as to what he may or may not do down the road.

Everyone sort of knows, too, that a lot of these politicians, they don't want to give an endorsement until they have a good idea that the person they are endorsing is actually going to make it. So you don't want to throw it away. So I get why he may be keeping his powder dry. But at the same time, I'm sure... I don't know. Maybe these candidates don't want an endorsement from Mike Pence if they're trying to win over, you know, Trump voters. Look, I candidly think that the endorsements are exaggerated also as far as what they're impacted. So I...

I don't anticipate any worse than anytime soon. He may make a different decision in the coming months, but I wouldn't anticipate one anytime soon.

So why did Mike Pence just drop out this past week? Was it because of the debate coming up? I don't think he had made the debate stage. Was it that you guys were running out of cash? Like, I thought you'd make it to Iowa, but... You know, I think that there's always an opportunity to continue on. The question is, at what cost? And I think that he would have been on the debate stage if he had chosen to be there.

But, you know, I think at some point when you're not seeing evidence of retraction, I think it's looking for the right venue. And I think that the RJC provided that for him. I think that he was, when he came into Congress, he was always a stalwart ally of Israel. He formed with Democrat Howard Berman, the first caucus to fight anti-Semitism, and

He's, RGC was a home for him for many years to give speeches and to talk about the administration accomplishments. But it was also a forum to talk about many in our party for walking away from our international commitments.

And I think that's why it was like, look, this is the perfect venue for me to give a speech and also to explain why I'm stepping away. But again... Because he wanted to be highlighted and he wanted to get that message out. I'd encourage you again to look at that speech too if you feel like he has a warning to the party. That's another warning to the party. Yeah. Will he endorse Trump if he's the nominee?

Again, you're asking me to speak to him about hypotheticals that are way down the road. Today, I think that would be difficult to imagine, but I'll leave that to him.

I wonder, will he keep the warnings going, though, into the general? Like, will we hear from him continually or is he going to go away? As he said at RJC, he's not going to leave the fight. And he's going to continue to make his case to our movement and to our voters about fighting for conservative principles. Even if it hurts the party's nominee? I think he's going to hold our nominees and our candidates accountable for his conservative convictions.

Interesting. So he's not going away. Just asking, is there anything you would have done differently? You know, going back, I know it's a hard question to answer, but I'm sure you've thought about it. No, I think that people who quickly say no are usually not being candid. Of course, there's always things to do differently. But I mean, you saying specific to the campaign, are you meaning about the administration or what do you ask them?

I mean, any of it, but I guess the campaign. Sure, let's talk about the campaign first. You know, I think that...

I think that perhaps timing of getting into the race was probably a difficult one. I think there's a lot of narratives that have already been settled. And I think that, you know, soon after... He should have jumped in earlier, you think? Perhaps so. I think that by the time he announced, I think that it was within a month that the indictment came down and basically announced that Pence would be one of the witnesses against Trump. I mean, that's not where...

the voters of our party are today. So some of this was out of his control. But no, I think he ran a campaign that was based upon the issues, and he ran it in a Penn style that I think he can be proud of. So I'm not sitting here trying to second guess, but I think that you always can maybe tweak something here or there a little bit different.

I was thinking that maybe he would have thought that he should have been more pronounced in taking on Trump from the beginning. I don't know. So it made the indictment seem as... Personal attacks are not his style. I think he's happy to switch on the policy, but he doesn't like to be a personal attack dog. I think that that was certainly a role that Chris Christie was always going to play. I think if Mike Pence tried to play that, people would view that as incredibly...

uh lacking authenticity so except when it's against vivek ramaswamy who by the way i was surprised to see pence's bite because like i mentioned he's a very nice guy um he must really hate vivek ramaswamy how much does he hate him again go back it was personal i think that mike was exposing vivek as the fraud that he is i think he was basically you know highlighting the fact that

I mean, people forget he never even voted in a presidential race, yet he wants people to vote for him for president. And I think that the policies Vivek is advocating are anathema to what we as conservatives believe. And so by all evidence, it's hard to suggest that he's ever really been much of a Republican. So I think that Mike was- But I would argue in the same way that Vivek is, you know, as you said, inauthentic, he's got these crazy ideas, fraud, whatever. So is Trump.

He could use the same venom towards Trump. I think I can see the point that I think Trump came to conservatives and said, transactionally, I will advance your agenda. And he did. He did. I mean, for conservatives, it was it was four years of significant policy achievement. But I think he's gone in a very different direction. Is it just more complicated because he was a part of the administration?

And he's proud of those achievements, obviously. Sure. But again, it's not as simple. It's hard to go back and find something other than the Reagan administration where conservatives advanced, you know, huge historic achievements on the courts, huge tax relief, rebuilding our military. I mean, that's a lot of things that we've championed for many, many decades. So it's hard to say that that wasn't conservative what Donald Trump accomplished during those four years. Got it.

Yeah, so it's hard to... Because he wanted to also take credit for the major advancements. He's often called it the Trump-Pence administration. That's how he's described it. Well, again, I think up until January 6th, there was a very close partnership between the two of them. I do think that January 6th, I do think part of conservatism, though, was believing in the rule of law. And I think that, unfortunately, the former president didn't believe in the rule of law and very much...

wanted his vice president to violate his oath on that day. And so I think that that was a clear divide. And I think if you don't have Mike Pence and other conservatives around Donald Trump, you've seen him continue to veer in a way that's away from conservatism.

Yeah. And so I guess in the next administration, do you think conservatives in Washington will end up filling out his administration or do you think it will be like largely empty and filled with Steve Bannon like characters and Stephen Miller kind of or whoever Breitbart writers now running the, you know, legislative affairs office and Matt Gaetz is, you know, secretary of treasury.

I don't want to besmirch Breitbart. I agree with much of what they write. But I think that he is going to have a more difficult time finding competent conservatives willing to serve in a second administration than Dick.

Okay. One last question. It's been, you know, suggested that Pence's position on abortion was too extreme for the party. And he saw that while campaigning. Would you agree with that? No, I certainly would not agree with that. I think that much of the traditional media's commentary about the midterm election was about abortion. And I don't think that was the story. I think if you look at 2022 and you saw Brian Kemp win,

win decisively in Georgia against a really well-funded candidate in a swing state when he passed some of the strongest. Well, is Georgia really like a swing state? I don't know.

I think it voted Democrat in the last presidential race. I think it's voted Democrat in the last three Senate races. So if you don't want to say that's up to you, but I think it's become one. If you don't think that's a state, you know, Mike, I wouldn't put it in like the seven swing states that everyone sort of Ohio. Mike DeWine passed the strongest polite legislation in the country. He won his reelection by about 20 percent.

So for all those who say that it was simply a life issue, I think it was more about where we lost were candidates who were going to relitigate the 2020 election. Where we won were candidates who were putting forward a forward agenda. So I don't think he's out of step with a large part of our party on the

on the life agenda. And, you know, the vast majority of people do actually support legislation that would, that would stop abortions at the time that, that babies can feel pain. And so that's basically the position he adopted on the campaign trail. So no, I would, I would not say that, that he's out of stuff, but to be candid with you, I'm not sure that he would care because like he feels that life is a far more important issue than the consequences of that, of that particular issue.

Yeah, it seems like Pence was sort of out there just kind of with a message and a mission.

rather than like trying to win votes. He was trying to win like hearts and minds. And if they didn't vote for him, like, I don't know, to me, that's what it, because I didn't see an actual like electoral path. And if you think I'm, I think, I think he's a person true to his convictions. And I think that's something to be proud of. And I'd say that on the life issue, I think the bigger challenge is less being out of step. I think for many Republican voters, they feel since the Dobbs decision that we have now won that issue where

Whereas I think Democrat voters are more energized and wanting to overturn that and continue to fight it. So I don't think the same energy is there on our side, but I don't think it means that we have to step with a lot of parties. Marie, isn't there that big vote in Iowa next week? So we'll see if that upholds. Okay. Well, thanks, Mark. I appreciate it. It was great having you. Thanks for having me. It's good talking to you. Thanks for listening to another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. If you like it, please rate it, subscribe, send it to your friends.

I want to thank my producers, Devin Manzi and Connor Nevins. If you like my reporting, you should sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. Go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and you can get 20% off with the discount code Tara20. I'll see you on Tuesday.