(CNN) –– Former United States Vice President Mike Pence asserted this Friday that he could not have a “clear conscience” if he supported presumptive Republican candidate former President Donald Trump in the 2024 general elections. The statement marks a surprising repudiation of his ex. A running mate. and with whom he served for four years.
“Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is not consistent with the conservative agenda that we’ve governed with during our four years. So, for the sake of my conscience, I cannot support Donald Trump in this campaign,” Pence said in a Fox News interview. .
The former vice president has avoided expressing his support during the 2024 Republican primaries since he announced the end of his own candidacy in October. However, he had earlier pledged his support to the party’s final candidate.
While he said he was “incredibly proud” of what he had accomplished in the administration he shared with Trump, Pence argued that the former president had distanced himself from conservative issues, pointing to the former president’s stance on abortion and the US national debt. Also changes its course regarding TikTok.
“During my presidential campaign, I made it clear that President Trump and I had deep differences on a variety of issues. And not just our difference over my constitutional duties that I invoked on January 6,” Pence said.
“As I watched his candidacy unfold, I saw him walk away from our commitment to address the national debt. I have seen him shy away from his commitment to the sanctity of human life. And this past week, their change of attitude to support our administration’s efforts to get tough on China and force the sale of TikTok to ByteDance,” he added.
Pence did not say who he would vote for in the 2024 general election, saying he would keep the vote to himself. However, he maintained that he would “never vote” for President Joe Biden. Pence also suggested he would not endorse a third-party candidate.
On January 6, 2021, while formally overseeing the congressional certification of Biden’s victory, Mike Pence broke with his boss when he decided not to recognize the results of the 2020 election. Pence later said that Biden’s “reckless words” to Trump that day — when mobs of Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol — “put his family and others at risk” in the Capitol.
In his own presidential campaign last year, Pence warned Republicans about the “siren song of populism” from Trump and his imitators.
Pence and his group, Advancing American Freedom, recently announced they would invest $20 million to advance conservative policies.
