Former Vice President Mike Pence is positioning himself as a “constructive force for the conservative agenda” during President Donald Trump’s second term as one of the few Republicans willing to challenge him.
“Well, for me, it’s always principles first. It’s not personal,” Pence said in an interview with the Associated Press.
Despite publicly falling out with Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, Pence said he would support the new Trump administration on issues he agreed with, but would challenge others.
Pence’s political advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, spent nearly $1 million on ads opposing Trump’s newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence during the 60th presidential inauguration in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The former vice president said he and those who work for him received “a lot of quiet encouragement” in opposing Kennedy. Pence described finding it necessary to speak out on finding the “nomination of an abortion rights supporter to be secretary of HHS to be a dramatic departure from 50 years of strong pro-life leadership at HHS under Republican administrations.”
Asked why Republicans might be reluctant to oppose Trump publicly, Pence said, “I never speculate on motives. You know, I’m not new to town. I’ve waged lonely battles before.”
“But you know, you have to be willing to step out and lead,” the former vice president said. “My hope is that when the next issue of life comes up, that people will have been encouraged, emboldened to know that they’re not alone.”
Regarding RFK Jr.’s nomination, Advancing American Freedom President Tim Chapman told Fox News Digital that the group believed “it would be an abdication of duty and responsibility if nobody said anything about the life issue in particular, let alone some of the other concerns.”
“I think it’s more likely now that he’s better on life than if we had not engaged in the issue at all,” Chapman said. “Part of being constructive is weighing in and sending a market signal when the administration or Republican leadership might try to go in a direction that’s not tethered to conservative principles. And so you’re not always going to win all those fights. And in fact, we don’t even view it as our job to win all those fights. We view it as our job to start the conversation.”
In the second Trump term, Chapman argued, “there is a far stronger echo chamber on the outside that is currently encouraging and sometimes, you know, doing more than encouraging Republicans and outside groups to stay in line with the administration.” He said it’s “creating an atmosphere where some people who may disagree with a nominee or with a policy decision are choosing to bide their time and not make that disagreement public.”
“Time will tell whether that environment remains permanent and time will also tell whether that echo chamber serves the president well or ends up not serving him well. For various reasons, we don’t feel the pressure from that echo chamber to stay silent if we disagree,” Chapman told Fox News Digital. “We’ll do our best to constructively, you know, make our points. And when we disagree, try to pull the administration towards our view on policy. But then, you know, when we agree, be totally there running beside them and trying to help them push their priorities over the finish line.”
Advancing American Freedom is now lobbying against Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s pick for labor secretary, accusing her of being pro-union. While Pence’s group plans to spend the coming months pushing to increase military spending, shrink the deficit, and make permanent the Trump 2017 tax cuts, as well as trying to convince Trump to stop implementing tariffs on allies, the former vice president and those who work for him insist they won’t take on the “Never Trump” mantle.
Pence has been delivering speeches urging Trump to stand with long-standing foreign allies and lobbying members of Congress, while his aides write letters and opinion columns. Advancing American Freedom says they intend to praise the administration when they agree with it, while raising concerns when they don’t, advocating for longtime conservative principles that they believe have taken a back seat to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” brand of populism.
“We’re calling balls and strikes here,” Pence told the AP. “I think that the way we want to approach this is with integrity to principle. And I’m very encouraged. I think the Trump administration is off to a great start… I’m very pleased about the president undoing Biden’s border policies and putting back into place the policies that we had negotiated and established that secured the border.”
Pence said he believes “some of the prominent voices in the party have embraced a more populist thinking” but that “the overwhelming majority of people that ever vote Republican think any differently than they thought during our administration when we hewed to a conservative agenda or the years before or since.” To support his opinion, the former vice president recalled an interaction he had with a farmer at a campaign stop in Iowa in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel.
President-elect Donald Trump greets former Vice President Mike Pence at the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Despite the farmer saying he agreed with “absolutely everything” that Pence stumped about regarding “strong American support for Israel, strong American leadership in the world, continued support for Ukraine in their fight and limited government and bringing about reforms to put our fiscal house in order and right to life,” the former vice president recalled how the farmer said he could not vote for him in 2024 and that “I got to be for Trump this time.”
“And he goes, ‘But I’ll see you in four years. You’re going to be a great president someday,’” said Pence, who briefly pursued the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. “I said, ‘Would you mind telling me, you know, why?’ And he said words I never forgot, which was in effect: He lamented Biden’s failed record. And I saw that he was drawn to the need for a rematch. And then he said, ‘Plus, if they can do that to a former president, they can do that to me.’ And the ‘lawfare’ stuff went into higher relief.”
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“So I didn’t see in this last election a Republican Party that was embracing big government or a vision to pull back from America’s commitments on the world stage or marginalizing the right to life,” Pence told the AP. “I didn’t see that traveling all over the country and I still don’t see it. I think there were other factors that gave the former president a decided advantage in the election. He’d earned it. He’d won it. And then he won it in the fall. But I don’t think the party’s changed.”
In his interview with Fox News Digital, Chapman agreed. “I think he’s seen firsthand, and all of us have who’ve traveled the country, when you look at Republican voters and what they believe just on the issues, there’s not a lot of change going on in the party,” Chapman said. “The average Republican voter still feels very strongly about limited government, feels very strongly about traditional values and about pushing back against the left’s, you know, progressive attack on traditional values and feels very strong about a strong national defense. Like these are baseline concepts for conservative voters that have not changed in any way, shape or form.”
“Many of the reasons that they wanted Trump back were because of how successful the first Trump administration was on those issues,” he continued. “The policy set has not changed… there was a reaction to the left’s out of control lawfare and out of control cancel culture and that Trump was seen as the object of that. And so there was a very, very natural and very frankly, commendable instinct from the American people and Republican voters to say, you know what? We’re going to stick it to him. We’re not taking this anymore.
Pence told the AP that he went to Trump’s inauguration last month and “was very moved in the outpouring of kind words and expressions of appreciation from former colleagues, including many members of the new administration who I encountered in hallways.” When he saw Trump’s new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, Pence said he gave him a hug and “told him how proud I was of him.”
“We had praised him from here when he was selected,” Pence told the AP. “I must have seen or interacted with about half the incoming Cabinet.”
At the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, Pence said he had a “very cordial exchange” with Trump. When Trump was coming down the front row of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Pence recalled him saying, “Hi, Mike.” Pence said he extended his hand to Trump and said, “Congratulations, Mr. President,” and “I could see his countenance softened. And he said, ‘Thanks.’” Pence said he also congratulated first lady Melania Trump.
Al Gore, Mike Pence and Karen Pence sit behind Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald and Melania Trump at the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“You know, the people that know me know it’s not personal,” Pence told the AP. “I’ve long since forgiven the president for any differences that we had at the end of our administration. We still have those differences as the president still holds the view that, to my knowledge, that I had some authority that I did not have under the Constitution or laws of the country. But from my heart, I’ve prayed often for the president.”
The AP also asked Pence about the viral moment at the funeral in which his wife, former second lady Karen Pence, refused to acknowledge President-elect Trump or shake Melania Trump’s hand.
“My wife loves her husband. And I love my wife and I have great respect for her. And so – but I’ve been really moved at how many people around the country have thanked us both for that day,” Pence said. “But again, you know, I want to emphasize, we’re eyes forward here. You know, I’d always thought the president was going to come around on the position he took on Jan. 6.”
In his book, Pence said, he describes how he and Trump “actually parted on very amicable terms, very good terms,” but in the spring, when Trump “returned to the rhetoric about how I could have done something that neither the Constitution nor the law would ever permit any vice president to do, then I just decided it was important to go our separate ways.”
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“But hope springs eternal,” Pence said. “And we want to be a constructive force for the conservative agenda. I think that’s good for the administration. It’s good for the Congress. More importantly, it’s good for America.”
Chapman reiterated to Fox News Digital that Pence’s work during Trump’s second term was not personal in nature, pointing to Pence back when he served in Congress “was often a lone voice, you know, agitating against Republican leadership for a course correction to a more conservative vision for governing.”
“What you’re seeing him do now is almost a return to form,” Chapman said. “So I definitely think there’s nothing personal there.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
