Former Vice President Mike Pence doesn’t expect to attempt a grand political comeback and likely won’t ever run for the White House again, he said in an interview that aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“I don’t see that in my future,” the former Indiana governor told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “I don’t see it, but we’ll keep standing for everything we’ve always stood for, and we’ll let the future take care of itself.”
Pence, 65, said he would like to continue to play a role in conservative policy, though he offered no direct insight into what that may look like. He launched the Advancing American Freedom conservative think tank in 2021, and he sought the GOP presidential nomination last year but gained little momentum among voters.
“I want to be a voice for conservative values. I want to be a voice for the policies and liberties enshrined in the Constitution of the United States,” Pence told Welker. ” I want to be a champion of the conservative cause, and that’s where I’ll stay focused, and we’ll let the future take care of itself.”
Pence and President Trump had a major falling out at the end of the first Trump presidency, as Trump refused to concede Democrat Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election. Trump’s denials prompted supporters to storm the Capitol to try to stop Congress and Pence from certifying the election results, and Pence and his family had to be whisked to a secure location as rioters made their way through the building.
“We were different men, different personalities, but we developed a kind of relationship where President Trump was not just my president — he was my friend,” Pence told Welker, reflecting back on the prior Trump administration.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration. I mean, it didn’t end the way I wanted it to, but what we were able to do to rebuild our military, to revive our economy, to appoint conservatives to our courts that gave us a new beginning for the right to life and upheld religious liberty and all are going to be a source of great satisfaction for the rest of my life,” he added.
He declined to speculate about who Trump’s successor as the future leader of the GOP should be. Trump recently named Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential torchbearers.
“We have a very deep bench on the Republican side, which is a little bit different than the Democratic Party these days,” Pence said. “We’ve got a lot of great men and women, and for my part, my goal is to make sure that whoever leads our party in the future, that’s someone who embraces that broad, mainstream conservative agenda that’s always made America strong and prosperous and free.”