Pence says he won’t support Trump, but won’t vote for Biden either
Mike Pence, Donald J. Trump’s former vice president, indicated Friday that he would not back the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, as some of Trump’s other former rivals, including Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott, did.
Asked whether he would support Mr. Trump now that the former president had secured the party’s nomination, Mr. Pence said: Fox news that he “could not in good conscience” support him.
“It should come as no surprise that I will not be supporting Donald Trump this year,” he told Martha MacCallum on her talk show “The Story.”
The former vice president declined to say whether he would vote for Trump in the November election, but replied: “I would never vote for Joe Biden.” He also ruled out running as a third-party or independent candidate for president, saying he remained a Republican.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
In less than five months as a Republican presidential candidate, Mr. Pence struggled to gain traction among caucusgoers and primary voters who remained fiercely loyal to Mr. Trump.
He repeatedly reprimanded Mr. Trump, his former running mate, for his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, while seeking to take credit for the Trump-Pence administration’s record in areas that include include the economy. and judicial appointments.
Mr. Pence incurred the wrath of Mr. Trump and a mob of his supporters when he refused to comply with Mr. Trump’s demands to block the certification of the 2020 election results.
“During my presidential campaign, I made clear that there were deep disagreements between me and President Trump on a range of issues, not just our disagreement over my constitutional duties that I performed on January 6,” he said.
Mr. Pence said he was disappointed that Mr. Trump no longer focused on reducing the national debt or other issues important to conservatives.
“As I’ve watched his candidacy unfold, I’ve seen him walk away from our promise to address the national debt,” he said in the interview. “I have seen him shy away from a commitment to the sanctity of human life, and in the past week his reversal in cracking down on China and supporting our government’s efforts to halt a sale of the ByteDance TikTok application to force.”