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All right, boys and girls, we are back with another edition of the Ben Domenech Podcast brought to you by Fox News. You can check out all of our podcasts at foxnewspodcast.com. I hope you'll rate, review, and subscribe to this one and recommend it to a friend if you find it of interest.
Today, we have a replay of a recent interview that I did with the former Vice President Mike Pence. He had obviously a contentious performance in the first Republican presidential debate, but one that probably ensured that he's going to be able to make the debate stage for the upcoming debate in September, in which he's going to face off once again with a number of the leading candidates for second place currently to run against his former boss for the nomination.
It's one of these situations where Mike Pence was sort of not really expected to do a lot. He barely made the debate stage thanks to some last-minute searches from donors. But then he actually saw his poll numbers and his donor numbers increase in the wake of that.
Yeah, absolutely.
He's clearly going to be someone who isn't going to be as easy of an out as it looked like just a few months ago. The former vice president, Mike Pence. Mr. Vice President Mike Pence, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Ben, thanks for having me on the podcast. Great to hear your voice. And it's an honor to be on. It really is.
I want to ask you a question. I was trying to think through a question that you haven't been asked yet in recent months, because I feel like you've been asked a ton. And I couldn't find if you'd answered this one. Which vice president do you admire the most? Well, you know, that's a great question. I will tell you that I'm pretty biased towards our first vice president, John Adams. I had a portrait of him.
in my office. And of course, I'm close personal friends with former Vice President Dan Quayle, who's also from Indiana. But during the campaign in 2016, Ben, I was asked that who I might best try and emulate. And candidly, my mind went to former Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, who was someone who came up through a
You know, a traditional pathway in the Republican Party, served in administrations
had experience that was more traditional. And then he became vice president to an outsider governor from California who was the reason why I became a Republican. I joined the Reagan Revolution having started in politics as a young Democrat. But I just thought that the way that vice president
George Herbert Walker Bush carried himself was something that I would try and emulate. And I, and as I reflected at the time of his passing to his family and publicly, I sought to do just that. At the inside outside game in a way that, that seemed to be, you know, very critical in terms of getting anything done. You know, we see right now in Washington, this battle that's going to come over the debt limit and, and,
fiscal sanity. And one of the things that seems very interesting to me in terms of looking at poll data that's out from the American Action Network and there's a couple of other polls as well, the American people still seem to have an appetite for fiscal conservatism on some level. They talk about numbers that are in the high 60s or in the 70s, depending on how you ask the question about raising a debt limit and making cuts.
Why is Washington so bad at delivering on what people claim to want and then having anything in terms of a representation of consistent fiscal conservatism on spending? Well, Ben, you couldn't be more right. As I've traveled around the country since moving home to Indiana two years ago, I've
the Republican Party is still seen as the party of fiscal responsibility. And now I will tell you that, you know, I'm proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration of what we did in increasing defense spending after years of budget cutbacks. And I believe what we did in the course of the pandemic to come alongside families and businesses
in the midst of the worst pandemic in 100 years was right and proper. But in between those two things, I don't think we did a very good job restraining spending. And as I've traveled across the country, I hear more and more Americans realizing that we cannot sustain the path that we're on today. We have a national debt the size of our nation's economy for the first time since World War II.
But it's really just a down payment on a trajectory that could result in your children and my grandchildren facing not a mountain of debt in 25 years, but a mountain range of debt. And so it's one of the reasons why I've been doing my part to try and be a voice for returning to the principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, and also being willing to have a conversation
in the long term about how we reform the entitlement programs that today are more than 70% of the federal budget. I've been in that fight for a while. You know, I've been a cheerful conservative since my days in Congress.
we tried to do social security reform back in 2005 but frankly today with the with the national debt where it has been i believe there's an opportunity to bring americans together around common sense and compassionate reforms for younger americans in those programs so our fiscal solvency so i want to i want to express to you without any animosity towards you personally
There is definitely a feeling among millennial and younger people that the baby boomers basically held out as long as they could and continue to hold out in terms of political leadership on the entitlement reform question in a way that has only served to get more money for them in a way that our children will be denied, that that
that that money going to them, you talk about social security, obviously, reforming Medicare, reforming some of these other programs, they're much more complicated. But social security is essentially a math problem of just how old are you going to be when you start getting these checks? The unwillingness to budge on that, even as human American lifespans to our credit, I mean, it's a great thing that people are living longer. These programs were not designed to sustain you for that long.
There's a resentment there, and it doesn't seem like, especially given the vocal ways that former President Trump is going after, for instance, Florida Governor DeSantis for voting for things that I know that you supported, fiscal conservatives supported, Paul Ryan supported in terms of trying to fix entitlements.
Is there any path forward, given that some of the vocal leaders in the party basically have this attitude of these things are completely off limits? We can't even adjust the age range on that kind of gradual monthly basis. Well, it's actually worse than that when you get to Joe Biden. And Joe Biden's policy is insolvency. I mean, right now, Ben, your listeners deserve to know there's about 70 members of the Senate signed on to a bill
that would do nothing more than bring parties together to talk about responsible entitlement reform. Nothing could go under the bill. Nothing could go to the floor unless the leaders of both parties signed off on it. And so there's a stopgap against partisan games being played. Joe Biden won't even support that.
And it's astonishing to think that an 80-year-old president of the United States and frankly, Mike, you know, the president with whom I served are part of a generation that essentially saying we're not even going to discuss the possibility of common sense and compassionate reforms. And I really do believe this is one of the issues that your generation gets.
at a level that is not fully appreciated by people in my generation and older. You know, I'm on the tail end of the baby boom. I was born in 1959. And I will tell you that we've always heard about the third rail, you know, Ben, that you're from a great political pedigree, as does your amazing wife. And there's always that you can't touch that third rail. But
But I got to tell you, when I've been talking about this over the last two years, I've had more and more younger Americans coming up to me and saying, thank you. Thank you for being willing to be straight with us about the realities. Because if we don't do anything, those little kids you have, and I've got grandchildren that are your kids' age. I mean, if we wait 25 years to deal with this issue,
They will only have bad choices. You talk to budget experts, they will tell you they're either going to double payroll taxes in 25 years, introduce a VAT, a European style taxation system, or they'll be faced with actually cutting programs that people depend on. But if we, this sounds like a little bit of an infomercial, but if we act now, if
If we act now, we can actually do things that don't affect anybody in retirement today or who retire in the next 25 years. But actually, here's my line. I like to say we can take the New Deal programs and give younger Americans a better deal, including a healthy American economy and a fiscal foundation that allows us to provide for all the needs of the country, including our national defense in the decades ahead. You know, there's a...
You talk about the third rail of American politics, and I hope I don't offend you with this analogy, but I occasionally use communication between different people and sometimes use GIFs or emojis or things like that to stand in for various expressions. And one that I have used more often than not in discussing a particular approach you have taken is the GIF of
the skinny young Captain America jumping on top of a grenade. It feels like when it comes to so many different issues that you confront, you are jumping on top of that grenade. You know, of course, in the context of that movie, you know, it's a grenade that doesn't go off. But do you feel like that's kind of your role in American politics right now where you're taking the hard issue, whether it be
whether it be defense spending, whether it be entitlement reform, whether it be the abortion issue that every consultant is telling people to run away with. And you're just sort of saying, I'm going to jump on that. Well, honestly, look, when you're vice president of the United States, I always had the view, the job of the vice president is to take a half step back and in every way support the president. As I said in my recent autobiography, Ben, I was always loyal to President Donald Trump.
He was my president. He was my friend. I only had one higher loyalty. That was to God and the Constitution. And that would precipitate the confrontation that we went through at the end of the administration and much of what continues to separate us to this day. But as you know, you've followed me for some time. You know, look, it took me 10 years to get to Congress.
Once I got there, I was absolutely determined to stand for the agenda that had drawn me to the Republican Party, which is an unwavering commitment to a strong national defense, to American leadership in the world, a commitment to fiscal responsibility, and a limited federal government that relentlessly drives for a balanced federal budget, a commitment to traditional values,
most especially the sanctity of human life. And so those are things I've always was about, proud that our administration advanced many of those causes during my time as vice president. But your perception, your gif about me makes me smile, but it's just Mike Pence getting back to being Mike Pence. - Well, no, yes, I do remember. I remember when you were coming to the, when you came to the ATR meeting as Rush Limbaugh on decaf,
Yeah. So the question that I have for you, though, about that, and you bring up the end of the administration. Sure. You know, it seems to me that the public actually does want a reckoning on this that is not like what we saw from the, you know, Cheney, Kinzinger, Democrat commission. They do actually want to have some kind of resolution on this. It's like a
it's like a festering kind of thing there. It's a scab that just won't go away and heal. How do you deal with that personally? Because I know it's something that you have to care about deeply, and I'm sure that your family cares about. And do you feel that sort of there's been, that in a way, this thing has been perverted by a lot of different people who have different agendas involved?
different agendas about both what they want that final sort of the period to be about, what they want January 6th to be about, and also ignoring kind of the important lessons about what went on within it. Well, first off, I just have faith. You know, I know in my heart of hearts on January 6th that by God's grace, we did our duty that day. You know, I had no right to overturn the election.
No vice president in American history had ever claimed the authority to reject electoral college votes or return them to the states. And I was determined to do my duty that day. And I believe we did our duty that day. And I've spoken openly and plainly about that. And the other thing is, I have faith in the American people that as I've traveled over the last two years, I do know that that
that this issue, you know, continues to play out in Republican circles, and it continues to be a preoccupation of many in the national media. But two things I would observe, Ben, as I've traveled around the country, I've been heartened, as I was last night in Orange County, a big crowd turned out. I've been heartened how many people
have made a point in the last two years to thank me for what we did that day. And I always say it was a privilege and they express appreciation for that. And I'm talking about Republicans,
conservative Republicans, I'm talking about independents, I'm talking about many Democrats who've walked up and begun a conversation at an airport by going, "Hey, man, I don't agree with anything you stand for, but thanks." And I think it shows that the American people cherish our Constitution. They cherish the notion that every one of us raises our right hand
and takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I really do believe that going forward as a country, and I think you saw some of this in the midterm elections, Ben, and I really do, that candidates that were focused on the future, that were focused on offering positive conservative solutions to the disastrous record of the Biden administration did very well. I mean, in statewide races and in congressional races,
but candidates that were focused on the past, candidates that were focused on relitigating the last election did not do well. And so I really do believe that everything I see is that the American people want to learn the lessons of that day. They want to make sure it never happens again. But I think they long for leadership that will reaffirm our commitment to the Constitution
to holding up that charter as the unifying foundation on which all of us stand, but also have leadership that focuses on the challenge they and their families are facing today.
More of the Ben Domenech podcast right after this. Cutlow on Fox Business is now on the go for podcast fans. Get key interviews with the biggest business newsmakers of the day. The Cutlow podcast will be available on the go after the show every weekday at foxbusinesspodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. Two questions about your feelings. One, obviously the person who is advocating most vociferously for this view, of course, I am in agreement with you on it.
is the attorney John Eastman, who has been sort of targeted in a way. Obviously, he asked for a pardon. There was a lot of other details. What do you think of him, and how do you feel about the advice that he was giving at the time? And secondly, there's a lot of animosity toward the government for the way and the DOJ for the way that they've treated some of these January 6th defendants. Do you believe that they've been treated fairly?
And what kind of level in terms of any kind of acceptance that, you know, there are certain people who kind of went along with the flow here, but may not have actually engaged in violent behavior. You know, what should our attitude be toward them? Well, I think let me take the second one first and say that clearly,
uh everyone who engaged in in violence that day against law enforcement officers who engaged who vandalized our nation's capital that day I said that day and I've never wavered that they need to be held to the fullest account of the law I we're all entitled uh to to a due process I've I've been troubled to hear accusations that some people have
uh you know have been have been um you know not treated in a manner consistent with the law during incarceration and i would fully support uh a review of that but that being said there's no question there were people that were swept up in the moment that day that it's that uh i have no doubt in my mind that there were people that that uh
that did not come with violent or nefarious intent. And I think that the attempt to paint with a broad brush everyone who came to Washington that day, and frankly, paint the entire Republican Party the way Democrats have tried to paint the Republican Party is one of the reasons why the partisan January 6th committee fell flat. It's one of the reasons why
I think an issue that we could have looked into in a truly nonpartisan way, you know, has really divided along partisan lines and understandably so. I mean, the notion that every Republican in America fell in the category of those that did violence that day is part of the rhetoric that's come out of the Democratic Party and this administration. And it's just,
unacceptable. You know, my view always was what should have happened is what happened after 9-11. I was in Washington on September 11, 2001. And after the fact, we created a truly bipartisan and effectively nonpartisan commission to look into what happened that day. And in the aftermath of the January 6th committee, you know, that even some of the senior staff members
conceded the fact that they didn't look very deeply into security and intelligence failures. So, you know, but I think every American, you know, was deeply troubled at what happened that day, believes people should be held to fullest account of the law, but more facts, understanding what happened so we can make sure it never happens again has got to be the priority. With regard to the attorney you mentioned and other attorneys,
that were advising the president in those waning days of the administration. You know, I said in my book,
You know, I have a particular enduring level of frustration about attorneys who not only shouldn't have been in the Oval Office, they never should have been let on the property. They were coming in telling the president while he had yet senior legal counsel, great outside advisors like Jay Sekulow and others, great internal counsel.
advisors like general counsel that will tell we're telling him
what the facts were, what the status of legal challenges that have been brought were, and then ultimately about my role was. But there was this gaggle of attorneys that were allowed in that told the president, as the Bible says, what his itching ears wanted to hear. And I think history will hold them accountable for that. In my book, I recount a conversation
where it was in the waning days leading into January 6th, where I was able to call John Eastman out and prove in front of the president that he didn't even believe what he was telling me. That he was offering speculative legal theories to the president of the United States going into a
a solemn constitutional process. And so I think there will continue to be an accounting for that and there should be. But at the end of the day, the American people deserve to know what happened that day. They deserve to know why it happened and make sure that it never happens again. And the last thing I'd say is, there were voting irregularities that took place in a half a dozen states, Ben. I mean, there were states that changed the rules.
in the name of COVID. But ultimately, the courts upheld those changes. And I hold the view that we need to continue to advance the cause of election integrity on a state-by-state basis to ensure the American people have confidence in one person, one vote that's at the heart of our democracy and our republic. And I'll continue to be a voice for that.
you know back in the 2000s the you know when you were sort of coming into the the congressional scene i don't think anybody would have predicted that we would be confronting a left-wing ideology today a a dominant in some ways progressive cultural viewpoint that denies the basic truths about human nature and biology and the differences between men and women um i know how deep your faith is how do you confront that
By calling out the sin of that horrible, culturally violative act of pretending that these are things that can be just thrown out.
While also not contributing to what people what the leftist agenda would call some kind of, you know, anti anti trans individual agenda, you know, in the sense of of encouraging any kind of violence or anything like that. Now, I personally would maintain that that is mostly a fiction invented by the media, right?
But I do understand that this is something that a lot of my faithful friends find to be very troubling. Well, Ben, you know, my faith teaches me that male and female, he created them. And common sense tells me that boys can't become girls and girls can't become boys. And I believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans, whatever their politics is,
understand and believe that. I think there's two priorities in this area, and one of which our foundation in Washington has weighed in on in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. And that is, we got to protect our kids from this radical gender ideology in our schools. It was a school in Iowa where
a student had to have a signed note from their parents to get an aspirin from the school nurse, but they could get a gender transition plan without ever notifying their parents. We've got to put an end to that. We've got to protect minor children against this radical gender ideology, and I'll continue to be a voice for that going forward. Secondly, I will tell you, as a
as the dad of a couple of girls that did some sports. And we've got to protect women's sports in this country. I mean, women's athletics have made incredible strides in the last 50 years, leveling the playing field literally and figuratively with men's sports. It's opened up academic opportunities, professional opportunities for women. And the very notion that a mediocre male performer in swimming
could announce that he is a girl and compete in collegiate women's sports and run away with all the blue ribbons. I think it's offensive to anyone who cherishes the incredible progress in women's sports.
uh that we've made so i'm going to continue to be a voice on those things it's about kids it's about women's sports and ultimately it is about religious freedom it's about the ability to believe as i started that male and female he created them uh and uh uh and increasingly what we're seeing in the secular radical left in this country is an antipathy toward traditional um
Judeo-Christian views, and we simply have got to stand up every day for our first freedom, which is the freedom of religion. With the last question, I wanted to ask you about your perspective on foreign policy.
you know obviously one of the big changes that's uh you know happened in terms of uh the republican coalition over the past couple of years has been a reframing of foreign policy in the post george w bush era and there's a lot of debate about what america first foreign policy looks like as it comes to you know obviously currently the issue of ukraine but people looking out to the future and the issues associated with taiwan
What's your perspective on what an America first policy looks like toward both of these situations? And what should we be doing now to prevent the kind of, you know, great Pacific war that could happen in the coming years? Well, look, America is the leader of the free world. If America is not leading, the free world is not being led. And we're the arsenal of democracy.
And since the days of Ronald Reagan, when he first articulated what came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, American policy has always been, look, if you're willing to fight the communists in your country, we'll give you what you need to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here.
it was part and parcel of what facilitated the unraveling of the Soviet Union. And it's one of the reasons why I, over the last year, including a year ago when my wife and I traveled into Ukraine after the initiation of hostilities and visited a refugee center just across the border from Poland, I've tried to be an unwavering voice
for support by the United States and our Western allies for the Ukrainian military. I think it's absolutely essential. I think the Biden administration has been slow in providing the military means to the Ukrainian military, and they continue to be slow.
and need to accelerate that. But at the end of the day, I think Ukraine is not our war, but freedom is our fight. And I also believe the best way to restrain the malign ambitions of communist China in the Asia Pacific, and particularly with regard to Taiwan,
is to have a victory for freedom in Eastern Europe for the Ukrainian people reclaiming their country and reclaiming their sovereignty. We simply need to stand against the notion of authoritarian regimes redrawing international lines by force. We need to stand with freedom-loving nations, and I'll continue to be a voice for that, Ben. Vice President Pence, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.
Ben, great to be on the podcast, and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks for listening to this interview with the former vice president. I'm Ben Domenech. We'll be back soon with more to dive back into the fray.