Iowa – Former US Vice President Mike Pence officially filed his bid for the Republican nomination for president on Wednesday, launching strong criticism of former President Donald Trump. He accused his two-time running mate of abandoning conservative principles and being guilty of dereliction of duty on Jan. 6, 2021, when the Capitol assault occurred.
Pence, who was speaking at an event in a Des Moines suburb, became the first vice president in modern US history to seek to take on the president he served. He added that Trump disqualified himself when he insisted that Pence had the power to keep him in office, even though he didn’t.
“Trump put my family and everyone on Capitol Hill at risk” on January 6. “But the American people deserve to know that on that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and our Constitution. Now the voters will face the same dilemma”.
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“I think that anyone who puts themselves above the Constitution should never be president of the United States, and anyone who asks someone else to put themselves above the Constitution should never be president again,” he added.
Pence has spent much of the past two and a half years indirectly criticizing Trump, trying to navigate his political future in a party that has morphed into the former president’s image. But on Wednesday, when he introduced himself to voters for the first time as a declared candidate, he went much further.
He accused the former president of abandoning the conservative values he espoused, including abortion. Pence, who supports a national ban on the procedure, said that “after leading the most pro-life administration in American history, Donald Trump and others in this race are withdrawing from the cause of the unborn. The sanctity of life has been part of our party’s call for half a century, long before Donald Trump was even part of it. Now he considers it an inconvenience, even attributing electoral defeats to the nullification of Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 ruling that decriminalized abortion nationwide.
Trump has declined to say which limits he supports nationally, blaming extreme rhetoric from some candidates for his losses in last November’s midterm elections.
Pence also criticized leaders who “can’t tell the difference between starting fights and ending them.”
“Most Americans treat each other with kindness and respect, even when they disagree. It is not too much to ask our leaders to do the same, ”he will say according to the text of the speech that he has prepared.
With Pence’s arrival in the race, at the age of 64, the field of the Republican Party is practically ready. The race includes Trump, who is leading in early polls; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is second; former UN ambassador Nikki Haley; South Carolina Senator Tim Scott; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson; and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who launched his campaign on Wednesday.
