Mike Pence pushes a post-Trump path for conservatives and GOP
Mike Pence became vice president by bearing witness to Donald Trump — the thrice-married, six-times bankrupt, once “very pro-choice” real estate promoter — as “a good man” who would “make a great president” for religious and conservative voters. “I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order,” Pence said at his first appearance with his running mate in New York in 2016, driving home the gravity of his judgment. Eight years later, Pence is asking the conservatives who followed his lead to turn away from Trump’s policy prescriptions — becoming the most prominent exile of the former president’s inner circle to speak out in an election season. When Trump suggested he would not push for a federal limit on abortion Monday, Pence called it a “slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him.” When Trump sent mixed signals on continued Chinese ownership of the social network TikTok, Pence launched a $2 million ad campaign through a nonprofit he founded demanding a Senate vote to force a sale or shutdown of the service. “Donald Trump is pursuing an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years, which is why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign,” Pence said last month.
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