Mike Pence Is Getting Bolder

Mike Pence is getting bolder.

As Donald Trump’s vice president, Pence put his head down and fulfilled the traditional role of the veep: chief advocate for the commander in chief. But since his old boss sicced a mob on him as he fulfilled his constitutional duty to oversee the certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote, Pence has been less obeisant. Expectedly so.

What comes as more of a surprise is Pence’s willingness to zig where other prominent members of the GOP zag. As John McCormack already noted, Pence delivered a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday where he said the following:

Now, I know there is a rising chorus in our party, including some new voices to our movement, who would have us disengaged with the wider world. But appeasement has never worked, ever, in history. And now more than ever, we need a conservative movement committed to America’s role as leader of the free world and as a vanguard of American values.

As Russia continues its unconscionable war of aggression to Ukraine, I believe that conservatives must make it clear that Putin must stop and Putin will pay. There can be no room in the conservative movement for apologists to Putin. There is only room in this movement for champions of freedom.

The Heritage Foundation, led by Kevin Roberts — no Putin apologist or newcomer to the conservative movement, but a proponent of the New Right — has recommended a noticeably less hawkish response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine than would be expected of the Heritage of old. Heritage leadership even ordered its own (since-departed) foreign-policy director to delete a tweet calling for more support for Ukrainians, and opposed legislation to do just that.

The same day as his Heritage speech, Pence appeared on Fox News, where he all but rebuked Kevin McCarthy, the House GOP leader, for suggesting that, if the Republicans retake the chamber in a few weeks, there is no guarantee that further Ukraine aid will be forthcoming. “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” said McCarthy, who nevertheless characterized the conflict as important.

“You know, the United States throughout our history has understood that we need to be the leader of the free world,” replied Pence when asked if he took issue with McCarthy’s comments. “And that includes being the arsenal of democracy, and in the days of Ronald Reagan, we understood the value of confronting the Russians and communism in the world. Not by necessarily fighting them directly, but by making sure that the people who were fighting the communists — whether in our hemisphere or places around the world — had the resources that they need. I think that this is such a fight.”

Pence has hinted at his presidential ambitions. Despite my own lofty estimations of his political talent, I worry that his refusal to play the part of Trump’s accomplice in the wake of the 2020 election will — preposterously — doom him in 2024. But if he is to stand a chance, it will be because he forthrightly and persuasively makes the case for the Republican Party and conservative movement he believes in, rather than becoming just one more voice in the formidable but perhaps not inevitable chorus to which he refers.