EGN NEWS DESK
Mike Pence couldn’t have requested for a extra welcoming viewers. For almost half-hour, the person who served as Donald J. Trump’s vp was repeatedly applauded as he provided a vigorous affirmation of his assist for Israel at a convention of principally conservative Jewish leaders in midtown Manhattan.
He barely paused when his questioner, Zvika Klein, the editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post, requested Mr. Pence, an evangelical Christian, to guide the room in prayer for the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas on Oct. 7. “It can be my nice honor: Let us pray,” he mentioned.
His invocation drew applause and shouts of “Amen.”
In the seven months since he dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, within the face of inevitable defeats within the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire major, Mr. Pence has been searching for out pleasant audiences like this one as he embarks on a mission to resuscitate his political profession. But simply as importantly, he’s presenting himself because the guardian of the conservative traditions of a Republican Party that he grew up with and which have since been redefined by Mr. Trump.
He has begun turning up on high-profile tv interviews to criticize Mr. Trump’s place on abortion, in a single instance. He introduced that his political advocacy group would spend $20 million this 12 months on appearances and ads that promote endangered conservative positions on points together with tariffs, authorities spending and America’s position on this planet.
Mr. Pence is probably the most outstanding Republican within the nation to declare that he wouldn’t vote for Mr. Trump, the person who selected Mr. Pence when he was governor of Indiana and put him within the White House. And he has made clear that, on the age of 65, he isn’t foreclosing one other bid for the presidency.
“The position I need to play is to be a champion for a broad, mainstream conservative agenda that’s outlined the Republican Party for the reason that days of Ronald Reagan,” he mentioned in an interview earlier than his look on the convention. “I see some proof that some voices in and round our party are departing from that — I need my voice, my group, to be an anchor to windward.”
Yet for all that, Mr. Pence is clearly out of step with the party that after embraced him. For many Trump loyalists, he’s nonetheless the vp who refused to associate with Mr. Trump to carry on to energy on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Judas Pence is a dead man strolling with MAGA, whatever the 30 items of silver in his PAC,” mentioned Stephen Okay. Bannon, a pacesetter in Mr. Trump’s motion, referring to Mr. Pence’s advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom. (He made his remarks in a textual content just a few hours earlier than a federal judge ordered him to report back to jail by July 1 to begin serving a four-month jail time period imposed on him for disobeying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.)
With his low-key, Midwestern presence, Mr. Pence stands in sharp distinction with the Republican Party of as we speak, personified by Mr. Trump and, for that matter, by Mr. Bannon. In the interview, Mr. Pence, talking softly as he settled on a sofa, appeared stunned by the suggestion that he had develop into an island in his personal party, a Republican Robinson Crusoe standing alone as Mr. Trump remakes their party in his title.
“I hope not,” he mentioned. “I hope I’m on a continent. I’m the place I’ve all the time been since I joined the Republican Party.”
“When I used to be operating for president, folks would usually say, ‘Mike Pence’s downside is that he’s operating in a Republican Party that doesn’t exist anymore,’” Mr. Pence mentioned. “That wasn’t my expertise. Everywhere I went on the marketing campaign path, folks, whether or not they had been supporting the previous president or supporting another person, nearly invariably would say, ‘I admire what you stand for.’ I’m satisfied that that is nonetheless a conservative party.”
Yet the indicators of his isolation are ample. Mr. Pence mentioned he had not spoken to Mr. Trump “for a very long time.” Republicans say it’s unlikely that he will probably be provided a outstanding talking spot when the party gathers for its conference this July in Milwaukee. A YouGov/Economist ballot from March discovered that 52 p.c of Republicans had an unfavorable view of Mr. Pence, in contrast with 42 p.c who had a positive view of the previous vp.
And regardless of the best way he recalled his reception on the presidential path, Mr. Pence by no means broke out of the one digits in many of the early polls, even with the benefit of being a former vp. He was compelled to drop out of the race earlier than he even made it to Iowa.
The notion of a former vp not supporting the president he served is so extraordinary that President Biden invoked it in a sharp-edged joke on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner this 12 months.
By distinction, Nikki Haley, the previous United Nations ambassador, and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who each drew much more assist in their very own unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination, mentioned they might vote for Mr. Trump. Mr. Pence mentioned he wouldn’t vote for Mr. Biden, however wouldn’t say who he would possibly assist.
“I like Mike very a lot — I strongly really useful him to Trump in ’16,” mentioned Newt Gingrich, the previous Republican speaker of the House. But he mentioned: “Mike Pence now finds himself in a party that sounds totally different than it used to whereas interesting to a constituency that’s totally different from two years in the past. And sadly for Mike, that tends to drive him right into a nook. At his present trajectory, he’s going to shrink down into the Never Trump vote.”
“There is not any future within the Republican Party in being the anti-Trump,” Mr. Gingrich mentioned.
Mr. Pence has walked a fantastic line as he has sought in these previous months to tell apart himself — and criticize — a determine as enormously in style within the party as Mr. Trump, a former ally who’s making an attempt to muscle Mr. Pence out of the highlight.
In the interview, Mr. Pence denounced the case towards Mr. Trump that led to his convictions on 34 felony counts of falsifying enterprise information to cowl up a $130,000 hush-money fee to a porn star. “I count on his felony convictions will probably be overturned. This case ought to by no means have been introduced.”
But on the Jerusalem Post discussion board, he barely talked about Mr. Trump apart from to hyperlink himself to Mr. Trump’s choice, as in style on this room as the previous president himself, to maneuver the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Mr. Pence argued that it’s Mr. Trump who has modified over these previous 4 years, drifting away from conventional Republican positions.
“On complete vary of points, I’ve seen the president operating on an agenda that’s totally different than what we ruled on,” Mr. Pence mentioned. “I see the president shifting within the route of a few of the isolationist voices in our party. Or the nationwide debt — he by no means even tried to reform the entitlements that represented 85 p.c of our federal spending.”
Mr. Pence has been notably vocal in assailing Mr. Trump on abortion. While Mr. Pence and plenty of different conservatives are pushing for a nationwide ban on the process, Mr. Trump has known as for leaving restrictions to the states. Mr. Pence’s place has earned him some admirers in essential corners of the Republican coalition.
“He’s the regular rudder of the pro-life motion amongst Republican leaders,” mentioned Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a number one group opposing abortion rights. “He doesn’t change. He has by no means been an individual who was testing the winds.”
Ms. Dannenfelser, whose group is supporting Mr. Trump this November, mentioned Mr. Pence would have a effectively of assist from abortion opponents ought to he resolve to return to politics in a post-Trump world.
“On the opposite aspect of this coming presidential race, there must be a intestine verify,” she mentioned. “And he can be an essential and important a part of that intestine verify.”
Tim Chapman, a senior adviser to Mr. Pence’s advocacy group, mentioned that the previous vp noticed himself as “as a keeper of the flame throughout a fairly tumultuous time on the fitting.”
“Everyone is enjoying the sport of exhibiting how shut they’re to Trump,” Mr. Chapman mentioned. “We don’t must fake. Everyone is aware of the place we’re. We are liberated in ways in which no different group is liberated.”
As Mr. Pence travels the nation, giving speeches and interviews, elevating cash, presenting himself as a possible future candidate for nationwide workplace — “I’ll hold you posted,” he mentioned when requested if he would search the White House once more — his subsequent chapter appears bleak, at the very least by November.
Mr. Pence goes up towards probably the most highly effective determine within the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan. As of as we speak, there appears little room within the Trump world for a candidate like Mr. Pence.
“He’s completed,” Mr. Bannon mentioned. “But like all profession politicians he’s hooked on being related.”
