EXCLUSIVE – Former Vice President Mike Pence says his fight to keep the Republican Party from drifting too far from its conservative roots and principles, amid a rise of populism in the GOP and big government creep in President Donald Trump‘s second administration, is “the calling of my life right now.”
And Pence takes issue with the conventional wisdom that Trump, since he first won the White House a decade ago, has upended and completely transformed the Republican Party.
“I’m convinced that while President Trump has changed some aspects of the agenda of the Republican Party, he hasn’t really changed the Republican Party,” Pence argued in an exclusive interview this past week with Fox News Digital, a couple of months ahead of the release of a new book promoting the conservative agenda.
Sitting in his Washington, D.C., office at Advancing American Freedom, his policy and advocacy organization that has been expanding in recent months, the former vice president emphasized, “We intend to be a voice for what conservatives believe and have always believed, and that’s fiscal responsibility, traditional values, strong defense and American leadership.”
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Pence is a former congressman and Indiana governor who served as vice president during Trump’s first term in office before breaking with his boss amid the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as he oversaw congressional certification of the 2020 election results.
The former vice president gave a thumbs up to some of what Trump’s accomplished in his second term.
“I’ve been very proud of the fact of what this administration accomplished in securing our border. I was pleased that the administration turned aside from those that were talking about raising taxes on top marginal earners. They extended all the Trump Pence tax cuts,” he highlighted.
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But Pence took issue with the second Trump administration for “embracing more big government programs and solutions, price controls on pharmaceuticals and credit companies, taking a position in private companies, the nationalization trend that has emerged, as well as marginalizing the right to life in so many ways and ignoring the scourge of mail order abortion pills around the country.”
“I am hopeful those advising the president are reminding him that it… was the conservative agenda that we governed on in our four years…that led to great prosperity for American families, for our economy and for strength in the world,” Pence said.
But the former vice president warned that “the Republican Party today is experiencing a scourge of some ‘-isms.’ We’ve seen protectionism show itself in unilateral tariffs that the Supreme Court of the United States recently turned back. We’ve seen some voices of isolationism that question our support for Israel, that would leave allies like Ukraine defend for themselves.”
And Pence added, “I think that the on the fringe and on the margins, voices of antisemitism in the party all need to be confronted, because none of those things represent what conservatives believe.”
But many Republicans would take issue with the former vice president’s argument that Trump hasn’t transformed the GOP.
“Donald Trump has tremendously altered the make-up of the Republican Party and the issues that it focuses on,” veteran GOP strategist and communicator Ryan Williams told Fox News Digital.
Williams emphasized that Trump “has altered the voter base of the Republican Party” and taken “the values and trajectory of this party in a different direction… It’s never going back to the way it was before.”
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While not aiming to return the party to its pre-Trump image, Pence said his mission is to remind people that Republicans believe in a strong national defense of American leadership in the world. We believe in free market economics and limited fiscally responsible government. We believe in the right to life and traditional values.”
“It’s been those principles that have guided our party for more than a half a century and have been to the betterment of the American people,” he added.
Pence said his hope is that “we’ll see not only this administration hew back to our roots of conservatism, but that we’ll see candidates for the House and Senate and statehouse around the country come back to those core conservative principles.”
Republicans are battling stiff political headwinds as the party in power in the nation’s capital traditionally loses seats in the midterm elections, and a rough political climate fueled by economic concerns amid persistent inflation and Trump’s underwater approval ratings.
But Pence said that pushing a conservative platform is “not only a pathway toward American prosperity and the vitality of freedom, but it’s also a winning agenda.”
Likely boosting the former vice president’s push will be his new book, “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience,” which is expected to release in June.
Pence ran on a traditional conservative platform, framing the future of the Republican Party against what he called the rise of “populism” in the party, as he bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, as part of a large field that unsuccessfully challenged Trump.
While Pence, who became the first running mate in over 80 years to run against their former boss, regularly campaigned in the crucial early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, his White House bid never took off.
Struggling in the polls and with fundraising, he suspended his campaign just four and a half months after launching it.
“It was clear to me that there’s a portion of the Republican Party today that’s being drawn aside by the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles. I spoke out against that as a candidate. Our foundation, Advancing American Freedom, has been championing that conservative agenda and will continue to,” Pence noted.
Asked if there’s another White House run in his future, Pence didn’t rule anything out.
“I will tell you, I’m not a long-term planner,” he answered. “We’ll let the future take care of itself.”
But he added, “For me, for my family, it really is all about the issues and values that first drew me to the Republican Party. Those are conservative values. And reminding our party and sharing with people across the country what conservatives believe and why it will make America stronger and more prosperous is really the calling of my time.”
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