May 3, 2021

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Mike Pence delivered his first public address since leaving office at the Palmetto Family Council Annual Gala in Columbia, South Carolina, on Thursday.

The event marked his re-entry into the public square in a critical presidential nominating state and in front of a gathering of evangelical voters he has long counted as part of his political base.

The address provided Pence an opportunity to highlight what conservatives see as the best of the previous administration’s record and position himself for the beginning of a potential presidential campaign in 2024.

In his remarks, Pence criticized President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office as drastically different from what he campaigned on in 2020, a line of attack echoing complaints from other Republicans in recent days.

“After 100 days of open borders, runaway spending, plans for higher taxes, a bigger welfare state, more government, defunding the police, abandoning the right to life, canceling our most cherished liberties, I’ve had enough!” Pence said to cheers. “After 100 days, I think the time has come for Americans devoted to faith and family and freedom and limited government to stand up and to unite behind a positive agenda and win back America, and it starts right here and right now in South Carolina.”

Now that Biden has reached the traditional benchmark, Pence contrasted Biden’s first 100 days with what he billed as the accomplishments of former President Trump’s first 100 days saying they were “four years of consequence, four years of results, and four years of promises made, promises kept.”

“The time has come for freedom-loving Americans to stand up to the far left agenda of the Biden-Harris, administration and say enough is enough,” Pence said. “It’s time to unite behind a positive agenda built upon our highest ideals and win back America. And we have the winning agenda, men and women, I have no doubt about it, built on American values and on our confidence in the American people.”

Pence addressed the current political moment as one conservatives have been in before, in 2010 and 1994, and suggested that the way to push ahead is to unify around a positive policy agenda that’s rooted in conservative principles.

He made only one brief reference to the deadly insurrection on January 6. “We’ve all been through a lot over the past year,” he said. “A global pandemic, civil unrest, a divisive election, tragedy at our nation’s capital, and a new administration intent on further dividing our country as they advance the agenda of the radical left.”

Pence’s speech also reflected on his own Christian faith and touched on areas where he shares values with the host organization, the Palmetto Family Council — a conservative nonprofit that advocates religious liberty.

Thursday’s speech serves as a kickoff to more travel and a higher public presence for Pence. He will now be taking at least one or two trips a week, a source familiar with his plans said, with a focus on efforts related to his partnerships with the Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation. His trips will also seek to help political allies, especially in boosting Republicans’ chances to take back the House and Senate.

Heading to South Carolina today to deliver remarks to the Palmetto Family Council on the Conservative values that have made America great!

Tune in back here at 7:00PM EST to watch live.

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) April 29, 2021

Pence also has a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster, with the first tentatively scheduled for publication in 2023.

And South Carolina is a politically important state for his first appearance since leaving office, a point not lost on the Palmetto Family Council’s executive director, Dave Wilson.

“The road to heaven and the White House lead through South Carolina,” Wilson said when Pence’s speech was announced. “We understand South Carolina does play a part in national politics, and we take that responsibility very seriously.”

Read this article on NBC News.

In first speech since leaving office, former Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday night highlighted what he saw as the accomplishments of the Trump administration while laying out what he called a “positive agenda for the Republican party. Pence’s public reemergence — in an early primary state — came as President Joe Biden marked his first 100 days in office and fueled speculation about a 2024 run.

In speaking to the Palmetto Family Council, a South Carolina social conservative Christian group, Pence criticized Mr. Biden for what he called “an avalanche of liberal policies.” He said the president wants to launch an “explosion of runaway spending” with his COVID relief plan, infrastructure proposal and the American Families Plan.

“I’ve had enough,” Pence said. “After 100 days, I think the time has come for Americans devoted to faith and family and freedom and limited government to stand up and unite behind a positive agenda and win back America. And it starts right here and right now in South Carolina.”

Pence also praised South Carolina Senator Tim Scott for the “positive vision” he outlined during his Republican rebuttal to Mr. Biden’s address on Wednesday night.

Republicans, Pence said, need to “unite behind a positive agenda” that includes strong national defense, immigration policies that emphasize border security, appointing conservative justices and “upholding all of the God-given liberties enshrined in the Constitution.” He called “election integrity” a critical issue, and one that should be left to the states, but did not repeat Mr. Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen.

Thursday night’s speech marked a turning point for Pence, who is expected to have an increased travel schedule moving forward, according to a senior aide. He’ll likely be active on the campaign trail during the 2022 cycle to help Republicans try to win back the House and Senate.

“We have the winning agenda and now it’s incumbent upon us to take that winning agenda to the American people,” Pence said.

After the January 6 attack, Pence and former President Trump didn’t meet for several days, but Pence told the crowd in South Carolina that serving in the administration was “the greatest honor of my life.” Pence often used “we” and “our” when touting their accomplishments. He highlighted their work on jobs, immigration, foreign policy, judicial appointments and COVID-19 vaccines.

“It was four years of consequence, four years of results and four years of promises made and promises kept,” Pence said.

While Pence had only positive things to say about his former boss on Thursday, Mr. Trump told top donors at a Republican National Committee retreat earlier this month that he was “disappointed” in Pence for confirming the results of the 2020 election, according to The Washington Post. A senior aide said Pence and the former President have a friendly relationship and have spoken often since they left office, including after Pence’s recent heart surgery.
The former vice president made only one reference to the January 6 attack during the counting of Electoral College votes, referring to it as a “tragedy at our nation’s Capitol.”

Pence has already plotted out significant steps for his life after the Trump administration. Earlier this month he launched Advancing American Freedom, an organization that he said in a statement will “promote the pro-freedom policies of the last four years that created unprecedented prosperity at home and restored respect for America abroad.” Former President Trump said in a brief statement to the Washington Examiner it is “nice to see Mike highlighting some of our many achievements!”

The former Vice President is also working with the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank. He has published two columns with the group focused on election integrity and immigration. Pence is also set to launch a podcast later this year with Young America’s Foundation (YAF), an organization run by former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. He is also YAF’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar and will join the campus lecture program.

The possibility of Mr. Trump running to reclaim the White House in 2024 looms large over the other Republican hopefuls who may consider running in 2024. He told conservative personality Dan Bongino on Wednesday that he’ll likely make a decision after the 2022 election. On Thursday morning, he did an interview with Fox Business Network, where he repeated false claims that he won the 2020 election, and said he is “100%” considering running for President again.

Other potential 2024 presidential candidates have been making early moves: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is visiting Pennsylvania next month, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer; Senator Ted Cruz of Texas; Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri; former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Iowa in March; and Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina, who gave the to President Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress, also recently traveled to the Hawkeye State in recent weeks. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is set to travel to Iowa at the end of June, as is former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Some of the potential 2024 contenders are attending a donor event in Texas next week that’s partly organized by prominent GOP strategist Karl Rove, CNBC reported. CBS News has confirmed Pompeo and Senators Cotton and Rick Scott will be among the attendees.

In a sign of the former president’s influence, Haley recently told reporters that she would back Mr. Trump if he ran in 2024 and wouldn’t run for president.

Pence leaned heavily on his faith during the speech before the Christian conservative group and said he’s optimistic about what’s to come for the country.

“God isn’t done with America yet,” Pence said. “There is a future and the best days for the greatest nation on Earth are yet to come.

Read this article on CBS News.

Former Vice President Mike Pence served up a harsh rebuke of the Biden administration’s first 100 days and called on Americans to unite behind a positive agenda to “win back America” on Thursday in his first speech since leaving office.

“After 100 days of open borders, runaway spending, plans for higher taxes, a bigger welfare state, more government, defunding the police, abandoning the right to life, canceling our most cherished liberties, I’ve had enough,” Pence said as the keynote speaker at a Palmetto Family Council event.

“After 100 days, I think the time has come for Americans devoted to faith and family and freedom and limited government to stand up and unite behind a positive agenda and win back America, and it starts right here and right now in South Carolina,” Pence added.

He attacked the Democratic administration over the roughly $6 trillion in spending that the Biden administration has proposed and expressed concern over the proposed tax increases.

He accused the administration of joining “the woke chorus” with its allegations that law-enforcement agencies suffer from systemic racism.

“In 2020, the American people did not vote for that agenda. They did not vote for the agenda of the radical Left,” Pence said. “It’s time to unite behind a positive agenda built on our highest ideals and win back America. And we have the winning agenda, men and women, I have no doubt about it.”

Since leaving office, Pence has largely remained out of the public eye. He recently launched an advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, that he says will work to defend conservative values. He has also joined the Heritage Foundation as a distinguished visiting fellow and was named a scholar at Young America’s Foundation.

Pence is likely eyeing a 2024 presidential bid, though it is currently unclear which Republicans will ultimately join the race — some potential candidates may wait to see if former President Donald Trump will run.

Trump and Pence appeared to have suffered a falling-out earlier this year after the former vice president, on January 6, declined to support Trump’s effort to have ballots from contested states sent “back to the States to recertify” them, in hopes of a victory.

Pence largely avoided the topic of the Capitol siege during his speech on Thursday, only quickly mentioning a “tragedy at our nation’s Capitol” when recounting the events of the past year.

Meanwhile, Trump told Fox News on Thursday that he would “certainly” consider Florida governor Ron DeSantis as a running mate if he chose to enter the 2024 presidential race.

Read this article on National Review.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has begun to step toward a 2024 presidential bid in his first speech rallying conservatives around the successes of the Trump-Pence administration.

In South Carolina Thursday, he hit the Biden administration for changing former President Donald Trump’s policies and said that he and the former president made America better.

Of his future, he said, “Over the coming months, I’ll have more to say.”

But at the end of his address, Pence also showed that he remains the nation’s leading political evangelical leader by giving witness to his faith, calling on the nation to follow the direction of God, and emotionally recalling the day he became born again.

It came during his “fireside chat” with approximately 400 pastors at the First Baptist Church of Columbia called together by the Palmetto Family Council.

Politics aside, Pence turned to faith.

“You know, as I’ve traveled all across this country, I’ve become convinced more than ever of two things. My time as vice president and my time in public life. This is a freedom loving nation. And this is a nation of faith. It truly is. The sweetest words I ever heard as I traveled around the country and I heard them almost every day was when someone would reach out, grab a hand, and look at me or my wife and just say, ‘I’m praying for you,’” said the vice president, former Indiana governor and congressman.

Pence also said that the U.S. is “a nation of believers,” and he encouraged people to lean on God. “I believe this is the time when we ought to renew our faith in Him who placed this miracle of democracy on these wilderness shores. Because I say from my heart, God isn’t done with America yet.”

Pence has never shied from discussing faith, but he may have given his most detailed explanation of his path when he told of the day in 1978 at a Christian rally when he “stood up” for Jesus.

Pence told of receiving a letter last year from the youth pastor and new bride who organized the event. They described remembering how disappointed they felt at the event that after a year of planning, rain was threatening.

“In his letter he told me that he, when the Saturday night came, the culminating evening of that youth festival, that it was raining, and he and his young bride walked through the grounds thinking that it had all been for naught. And then he wrote to me that that’s because ‘I didn’t know that a future vice president of the United States would be giving his life to Jesus Christ that night.’ He said ‘I cannot write that without tears,’” said Pence, adding, “and I cannot recite it without it.”

Pence recalled what happened that night. “I remember that night sitting on that hillside. It was like I heard for the first time those words that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever might believe in Him might not perish but have everlasting life. And I stood up, and I walked down … because my heart was broken with gratitude for what had been done for me,” he said.

After he received the letter, Pence said he had a chance to meet the organizer, and he thanked him for the event.

He told him, “Now I know who else to thank for that night in 1978.”

Read this article on The Washington Examiner.

Making it clear that South Carolina will not be treated as a flyover state for Mike Pence, the former vice president with possible 2024 presidential aspirations told a room of hundreds of Christian conservatives that winning back the White House in four years will start here.

The time has come to “stand up and unite behind a positive agenda” and “win back America,” Pence said in Columbia at a fundraising dinner. “And it starts right here and right now in South Carolina.”

In his first public remarks since leaving Washington — a departure marred by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot when a pro-Trump mob stormed the federal building, sending Pence and members of Congress to hide and barricade themselves — Pence took aim at the Biden administration. He said it’s poised to derail the success the Trump administration made over the past four years.

“In 2020, the American people did not vote for that agenda,” he said. “They did not vote for the agenda of the radical left.”

Thursday’s event was hosted by Palmetto Family, a conservative nonprofit founded to “persuasively present biblical principles” that often lobbies the state Legislature as it did this year when it passed a restrictive abortion ban, now challenged in court.

Pence did not mention in his roughly 30-minute speech what he will do in four years, though he hinted he will have more to say in the coming months. He also did not talk in-depth about his relationship with former President Donald Trump, which appeared fractured after the Capitol riots but has since been mended, CNN reports.

Instead, Pence touted the successes of the Trump administration, from getting three COVID-19 vaccines off the ground to tackling international terrorism.

Pence, 61, has kept a relatively low public profile since leaving Washington, signing a book deal and working at conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation. Recently, Pence, who had been diagnosed with a heart condition, underwent surgery in April.

The last year did pose challenges, Pence said, listing the global COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest after the deaths of Black men and women, particularly at the hands of police, the divisive election, the “tragedy at our nation’s Capitol” and the new administration.

“But through it all, I want you to know that I have hope,” Pence said.

He promised Republicans will make gains after not only losing the White House but losing the Senate, too.

“The best days for the greatest nation on earth are yet to come,” Pence said to applause.

In his corner Thursday night was state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg, already gunning for Pence to run in 2024.

“I’m encouraging it. I think he would be an excellent candidate,” Kimbrell said.

A freshman state senator who was one of five Republicans to flipped a Democratic-held seat in November 2020, the Spartanburg Republican told The State Thursday the circles of people he talks to, his constituents, none have shown animosity toward Pence after Jan. 6.

“In fact, a great degree of admiration for him and for his service,” he said.

On multiple occasions, Kimbrell said he has told Pence he hopes he runs in 2024.

“He didn’t say no.”

Read this article on The State.

COLUMBIA — Former Vice President Mike Pence returned to South Carolina and the public eye, telling a friendly crowd of several hundred Christian conservatives they need to “stand up and unite behind a positive agenda and win back America” in his first major speech since leaving office in January.

The effort to reclaim control of the country, Pence added at an April 29 fundraising gala for the Palmetto Family Council, “starts right here and right now in South Carolina.”

The remarks served as an early test for Pence as he emerges from former President Donald Trump’s shadow for the first time, seeking to emphasize their accomplishments together while also charting his own path forward as he looks ahead to a potential presidential bid of his own.

“We made history,” Pence said of his time in the administration. “We made a difference for our security, for our prosperity… We made America greater than ever before.”

Despite years of loyalty to Trump, Pence came under fire from the then-president after he bucked his request to block the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6. When a violent mob subsequently stormed the U.S. Capitol, some were screaming threats against Pence, who had to be shepherded away to safety.

The episode may have damaged Pence’s political reputation among some Trump diehards and his previously close relationship with Trump. The former president continues to voice frustrations with Pence, reportedly telling donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this month that he remains “disappointed” by his second-in-command.

Walter Whetsell, a veteran S.C. GOP strategist and longtime friend of Pence, said he still believes the former vice president would rank among the top tier of hopefuls in the Palmetto State due to his conservative background, national profile and four years by Trump’s side.

“For every vote he loses from the real fringe of our party for being perceived as disloyal, he picks up five or six because of his loyalty,” Whetsell said.

“It’s hard to put on paper a better candidate for South Carolina than Mike Pence: his evangelical roots, his Midwestern governor accomplishments, his states rights beliefs, his philosophy, the way he’s lived his life,” Whetsell added. “It’s a pretty darn good fit.”

Dating back to his days as a congressman and Indiana governor, Pence has often described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican — in that order,” and his Columbia speech was filled with references to scripture.

Pence made no mention of his dust-up with Trump or his unfounded claims of widespread election fraud. But he did say that conservatives believe “election integrity is a national imperative” and that lawmakers need to “work every day to restore the confidence of every American in every vote.”

Top South Carolina Democrats, for their part, give Pence no credit for his willingness to rebuke Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, saying he had no ability to do so anyway. They also argue Pence missed his opportunity to leave a positive mark when he was in the White House, including with his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The reality is this, folks: Republicans like Pence failed to lead when they were in power,” Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison, a former S.C. Democratic Party chairman and U.S. Senate candidate, said.

The speech came amid a flurry of recent activity for Pence, both political and personal.

Earlier this month, he launched “Advancing American Freedom,” a policy and advocacy organization to promote the Trump administration’s policies. He’s signed a multi-million dollar book deal and has plans to launch a podcast. He also recently underwent heart surgery and had a pacemaker implanted.

As he introduced Pence to the crowd, first-term state Sen. Josh Kimbrell said Pence “did more to carry forward the cause of freedom and religious liberty, and frankly the cause of the gospel, than any person I can remember.”

“Vice President Pence is here to stand with all of you, and I pray you all will stand with him,” said Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg. “I would love to see Mike Pence become my commander-in-chief.”

Pence frequently visited South Carolina, a crucial early-voting presidential primary state, during his time as vice president, helping  build potentially valuable relationships for any future campaigns. He also swung through Charleston for a private event in February.

Before the evening’s main event April 29, Pence toured a medical school in Spartanburg and met with local pastors in Columbia. He is expected to return to South Carolina within the next few months to help fund-raise for congressional Republicans in the state, according to a source with knowledge of his plans.

While Pence did not directly address 2024, he hinted he has his eyes directed towards the future.

“The best days for the greatest nation on Earth,” Pence said as he wrapped up his remarks, “are yet to come.”

Read this article on Post and Courier.