Former US president Donald Trump turned in a better performance than President Joe Biden during the first of presidential debates, a shift from 2020 when debate watchers saw the 81-year-old Democrat as outperforming his Republican rival. During Thursday's feisty debate that lasted roughly 90 minutes, President Biden and 78-year-old Trump sparred over the economy, immigration, foreign policy, abortion and national security. Both the leaders called each other a liar and the worst president in the history of the US. Sixty-seven per cent to 33 per cent of the registered debate watchers said that Trump turned in a better performance, according to a CNN flash poll conducted by SSRS. CNN was the host of the first of the three presidential debates held in Atlanta. Before the debate, the same voters said, 55 per cent to 45 per cent, that they expected Trump to perform better than Biden. The poll's results reflect opinions of the debate only among those voters who tuned in and are not ...
Former Vice President Mike Pence says he will not be backing Donald Trump in the 2024 election. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," Pence said in an interview with Fox News Channel on Friday, weighing in for the first time since the former president became the presumptive GOP nominee. Pence ran against Trump for their party's nomination but dropped his bid before voting began last year. The decision makes Pence the latest in a series of senior Trump administration officials who have declined to endorse their former boss's bid to return to the Oval Office. While Republican members of Congress and other GOP officials have largely rallied behind Trump, a vocal minority has continued to oppose his bid. It also marks the end of a metamorphosis for Pence, who had long been seen as one of Trump's most loyal defenders but broke with his two-time running mate by refusing to go along with Trump's unconstitutional scheme to try to remain in power
The decision to suspend the campaign for president was kept a close hold among advisors, CNN reported citing multiple sources
Donald Trump's rivals laid into him repeatedly during the second presidential debate on Wednesday, ripping the former president for skipping the event as they sought to dent his commanding early lead in the Republican primary. He should be on this stage tonight, said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is attempting to establish himself as the leading Trump alternative despite recent struggles to break out from the rest of the back. He owes it to you to defend his record where they added USD 7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation we have now. Seven GOP candidates squared off at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California for an event hosted by Fox Business Network. Trump was in Michigan, delivering a prime-time speech that continued through the start of the debate, attempting to capitalize on the Auto Workers Union strike and trying to appeal to rank-and-file union members in a key state that could help decide the general election. The debate comes at a .
Former Vice President Mike Pence says voters should expect to see the same, more combative candidate at the next GOP debate as he urged his former running-mate-turned-rival Donald Trump to join his competitors on stage next time around. You know, elections are about choices and I welcomed the opportunity last night to draw a contrast with other candidates on the stage who I think are walking away from the conservative agenda that has defined our movement for 50 years and holds the keys for restoring American leadership in the world and American prosperity and security at home, Pence said in an interview from Milwaukee a day after the first Republican presidential primary debate. With his campaign still mired in single digits and facing a sceptical GOP base, Pence delivered a surprisingly pointed performance Wednesday night. He launched repeated broadsides against his non-Trump rivals and tangled, in particular, with 38-year-old tech entrepreneur and political novice Vivek ...
Former Vice President Mike Pence made a surprise visit to Ukraine on Thursday, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and touring the war-torn country as it fights Russian aggression. Pence, who this month launched his campaign for the Republican nomination for president, has been deeply critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He has called on the US to deliver more military aid to the country and criticised GOP rivals who have questioned the ongoing US involvement, saying there is no room in the party for Putin apologists" and pushing back against those who want the US to take on a more limited role on the world stage. Pence spent roughly 12 hours in the country on Thursday, according to an adviser, with stops in Moshchun, Bucha and Irpin, according to NBC News, which travelled with him. I'm here because it's important that the American people understand the progress that we've made and how support for the Ukrainian military has been in ou
"I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States," Pence said of Trump who is currently the front-runner for 2024 Republican nomination
Former Vice President Mike Pence promised the best days of the greatest nation on earth are yet to come" in a video released on Wednesday formally launching his campaign for the Republican nomination for president. Different times call for different leadership, Pence says in the video, released via Fox News and Twitter hours ahead of a kickoff event in Des Moines. Today our party and our country need a leader that'll appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature." While it would be easy to stay on the sidelines, he adds, that's not how I was raised. That's why today, before God and my family, I'm announcing I'm running for president of the United States. Pence is staking his presidential hopes on Iowa as he launches a campaign that will make him the first vice president in modern history to take on his former running mate. Pence's campaign will also test the party's appetite for a socially conservative, mild-mannered and deeply religious candidate who has denounced t
Former Vice President Mike Pence is filing paperwork on Monday declaring his campaign for president in 2024, setting up a challenge to his former boss, Donald Trump, just two years after their time in the White House ended with an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and Pence fleeing for his life. Pence, the nation's 48th vice president, will formally launch his bid for the Republican nomination with a video and kickoff event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday, which is his 64th birthday, according to people familiar with his plans. He was set to file papers making his candidacy official with the Federal Election Commission. While Trump is currently leading the early fight for the nomination, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis polling consistently in second, Pence supporters see a lane for a reliable conservative who espouses many of the previous administration's policies but without the constant tumult. While he frequently lauds the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration, a Pen
Former Vice President Mike Pence will officially launch his widely expected campaign for the Republican nomination for president in Iowa next week, adding another candidate to the growing GOP field and putting him in direct competition with his former boss. Pence will hold a kickoff event in Des Moines on June 7, the date of his 64th birthday, according to two people familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details ahead of the official announcement. He'll also release a video message as part of the launch. His team sees early-voting Iowa as critical to his potential path to victory and advisers say he plans to campaign aggressively for the state's conservative, Evangelical Christian voters. The campaign is expected to lean heavily on town halls and retail stops aimed at showcasing Pence's personality as he tries to emerge from former President Donald Trump's shadow. The week will be a busy one for GOP announcements. Former New Jersey Governor Chris ...
A federal appeals court on Wednesday night moved former Vice President Mike Pence closer to appearing before a grand jury investigating efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, rejecting a bid by lawyers for former President Donald Trump to block the testimony. It was not immediately clear what day Pence might appear before the grand jury, which for months has been investigating the events preceding the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol and efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the election outcome. But Pence's testimony, coming as he inches toward a likely entrance in the 2024 presidential race, would be a milestone moment in the investigation and would likely give prosecutors a key first-person account as they press forward with their inquiry. The order from the three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit was sealed and none of the parties are mentioned by name in online court records. But the appeal in
A federal appeals court on Wednesday night moved former Vice President Mike Pence closer to appearing before a grand jury investigating efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election, rejecting a bid by former President Donald Trump's lawyers to block the testimony. It was not immediately clear what day Pence might appear before the grand jury, which for months has been investigating the events preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the election outcome. But Pence's testimony, coming as he moves closer to entering the 2024 presidential race, would be a milestone moment in the investigation and would likely give prosecutors a key first-person account as they press forward with their inquiry. The order from the three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was sealed and none of the parties are mentioned by name in online court records. But the appeal in the sealed case was filed just days af
Although Donald Trump has often avoided talking about abortion as he campaigns again for the White House, his former vice president, Mike Pence, is not shying away from celebrating Trump's efforts to restrict abortion rights. Pence, who is weighing whether to launch his own presidential campaign, raised his voice to nearly a roar when speaking to religious conservatives in Iowa on Saturday night as he touted Trump's nominations of three conservative judges to the US Supreme Court. The appointments paved the way to the court in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe. v. Wade ruling, which had affirmed a federal right to abortion. Pence, long known for his conservative values, called the appointments the most important of all the accomplishments of the Trump administration, drawing loud applause and cheers from the crowd of influential religious conservatives. We did that, Iowa, he said. I couldn't be more proud to have been a small part of an administration that did just that. Pence's .
Former Vice President Mike Pence has said that he takes full responsibility after classified documents were found at his Indiana home. In his first public comments since the discovery, Pence on Friday said he hadn't been aware that the documents were in his residence but his lack of knowledge wasn't an excuse. Let me be clear about something: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence, Pence said at Florida International University, where he was talking about the economy and promoting his new book, So Help Me God." Mistakes were made. The discovery made public by Pence's team earlier this week marked the latest in a string of recoveries of sensitive papers from the homes of current and former top US officials. The Department of Justice was already investigating the discovery of classified documents in former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and at President Joe Biden's home in Delaware and his former Washington office. The announcement of th
A small number of classified documents have been found at the residence of former vice president Mike Pence, and have been handed over to the National Archive, his counsel revealed on Tuesday. The revelation comes in the wake of classified documents found at the private office and residence of President Joe Biden from his term as vice president between 2009 and 2016. In a letter to the National Archives, Greg Jacob, an attorney for Pence, wrote that these classified documents were found recently at his residence. Pence, he said, was not aware of their existence, according to multiple media outlets. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents collected documents from Pence's Indiana home on January 19 at the request of the Justice Department, The Wall Street Journal reported, referring to the content of the second letter from Jacob to the National Archives dated January 22. Pence agreed to the search, the financial daily cited the letter as saying.
A growing number of Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, criticized Donald Trump on Monday for dining with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West days after launching his third campaign for the White House. Pence, in an interview, called on Trump to apologize and said the former president had demonstrated profoundly poor judgment when he met last week at his Mar-a-Lago club with West, who is now known as Ye, as well as Nick Fuentes, a far-right activist with a long history of espousing antisemitic and white nationalist views. The episode is serving as an early test of whether party leaders will continue to rally behind Trump as he embarks on yet another campaign for the White House after they have spent much of the last eight years being asked to respond to the controversies he's created. Trump has said he didn't know who Fuentes was before the meeting. But he has so far refused to acknowledge or denounce the positions o
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday warned against the growing populist tide in the Republican Party as he admonished Putin apologists unwilling to stand up to the Russian leader over his assault on Ukraine. Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington less than a month before November's midterm elections, Pence addressed the growing gulf between traditional conservatives and a new generation of populist candidates inspired, in part, by former President Donald Trump, who has transformed a large swath of the party. Today, on the cusp of a new era of Republican leadership ... I think we need to chart a course that doesn't veer off too far in either direction," Pence told the think tank audience. Our movement cannot forsake the foundational commitment that we have to security, to limited government, to liberty and to life. But nor can we allow our movement to be led astray by the siren song of unprincipled populism that's unmoored from our oldest traditions
In Donald Trump's assessment, Mike Pence committed political suicide" on Jan 6, 2021. By refusing to go along with the then-president's unconstitutional push to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Pence became a leading target of Trump's wrath and a pariah in many Republican circles. But the final weeks of this year's intensely competitive midterm elections suggest that the former vice president's fortunes have shifted as he lays the groundwork for his own potential 2024 White House campaign. The man who was booed last year at a conservative conference is now an in-demand draw for Republican candidates, including some who spent their primaries obsessively courting Trump's endorsement, in part by parroting his election lies. Pence has travelled the country, holding events and raising millions for candidates and Republican groups, including signing fundraising solicitations for party committees. For some campaigns in tight races, Pence is seen as something of a neutralizing ag
The Trump-Pence sign still hangs on the older building off Main Street in this historic town, a lasting vestige of the campaign fervor that roused voters, including many who still believe the falsehood that the former president didn't lose in 2020 and hope he'll run in 2024. The enthusiasm for Donald Trump's unique brand of nationalist populism has cut into traditional Democratic strongholds like Monongahela, about 25 miles south of Pittsburgh, where brick storefronts and a Slovak fellowship hall dot Main Street and church bells mark the hours of the day. Republicans are counting on political nostalgia for the Trump era as they battle Democrats this fall in Pennsylvania in races for governor, the U.S. Senate and control of Congress. Trump just came along and filled the empty space, said Matti Gruzs, who stitches old blue jeans into tote bags, place mats and other creations she sells at the weekly Farmer's Market downtown. He's still the king, and the kingmaker. Against the backdrop
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday implored fellow Republicans to stop lashing out at the FBI over the search of Donald Trump's Florida home and denounced calls by some of the former president's allies to defund the FBI, saying that was just as wrong as a push by Democratic activists to shift money from police. Pence also said he would give due consideration if asked to testify before the House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His pleas for restraint come as law enforcement officials warn of an escalating number of violent threats targeting federal agents and government facilities since agents last week searched Mar-a-Lago as part of the Justice Department's investigation into the discovery of classified White House records recovered from Trump's estate earlier this year. Speaking in New Hampshire, Pence said he has been troubled by what he called the politicization of the FBI. He also said the Justice Department and Attorney General .