Republican presidential hopeful Mike Pence, perhaps due to his historically lousy poll numbers, has finally decided to hit Donald Trump where it hurts. During a CNBC interview Wednesday, shortly after Trump was arraigned in his classified-records scandal, the former veep said that he “cannot defend what is alleged” in the former president’s indictment. It “contains serious charges,” he added, noting that Trump allegedly created “an opportunity where highly sensitive classified material could have fallen into the wrong hands.” (Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts.)
The comments are a remarkable departure from the tack Pence took just a week ago: Speaking before a CNN town hall last Wednesday, Pence had urged the Justice Department not to indict his former boss, arguing that such a move would sow discord at home and send a “terrible message” abroad. He also refused to rule out the possibility of pardoning Trump should he win the presidency, and decried the FBI’s decision to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home last year.
Still, a hint of that same sentiment was present in Pence’s about-face this week. Parroting an argument made by Trump’s own surrogates, Pence criticized a “two-tiered justice system” that gave a “pass” to Hillary Clinton in 2016 over the private email server she used as secretary of state to share sensitive materials. (Unlike Trump, Clinton did not store or share any documents marked as classified on the server.)
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“I just can’t believe that politics didn’t play some role here,” Pence added. “If I have the privilege to be president of the United States, we’re going to clean house at the Department of Justice…and we’re going to restore public confidence in equal treatment under the law.”
Like other Republican presidential hopefuls, Pence could have a better shot at winning should the records case impede Trump, who is leading his closest primary rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, by more than 30 points on average. Pence, who announced his candidacy last week, is currently polling at around 5% nationally among likely Republican voters, despite entering the race with better name recognition than the rest of the field outside of Trump and possibly DeSantis. In fact, Pence’s celebrity might actually be hurting him in the primary: The former veep has taken near-constant hits from Trump over the past two-and-a-half years—largely over his refusal to back an election reversal scheme that Trump’s team planned on January 6, 2021—which might explain why a broad swath of the right is openly hostile toward him.
But that hasn’t stopped him from attempting a delicate balancing act that involves both attacking Trump and offering concessions to the Trump supporters he’d need to mount a successful campaign. “I think millions of Americans are deeply troubled by this indictment,” he told The Wall Street Journal shortly after describing Trump’s actions—detailed in Tuesday’s indictment—as indefensible. “My bottom line is this: I think the American people have lost confidence in the Department of Justice.” Pence deployed a similar line in the aftermath of January 6, condemning the Capitol mob’s violence while also echoing the false claims of “election fraud” that they used to justify their attack.
Caleb Ecarma
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