After years of being a subservient sidekick, Pence is beginning to distance himself from Trump as he takes increasingly overt steps toward a White House bid of his own:
NEW YORK — After Donald Trump was caught on video bragging about sexually assaulting women, Mike Pence stayed on his ticket. As the coronavirus ravaged the U.S., the then-vice president praised the administration’s response. And after a violent mob threatened his life during an attack on the U.S. Capitol, Pence rejected entreaties to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
The moves show how Pence, a former congressman and Indiana governor, is working to craft a political identity independent of his former boss. The strategy carries substantial risk in a party still dominated by Trump and his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
They note in particular that Pence has long been a critic of Putin, and expect him to keep speaking out on Ukraine. In a trip that seemed to cast Pence with a presidential aura, he made an unannounced visit to the Ukrainian border with Poland shortly after the invasion, where he crossed into Ukraine and helped deliver aid to the flood of refugees who were escaping the war.
Pence has spent the past several months traveling the country, delivering policy speeches, raising money for midterm candidates and visiting early-voting states, while working on a pair of books. In the coming months, he is planning a return visit to Iowa, which holds the party’s first nominating contests of the presidential election cycle, as well as two visits to South Carolina, another early-voting state.
The efforts also make clear the lane Pence could occupy if he chooses to compete in what may be a crowded 2024 GOP primary contest that could include Trump himself. While there remains a portion of the party that will never forgive him for abiding by his constitutional role on Jan. 6, allies believe that Pence could be in a unique position to merge the traditional conservative movement with successes of the Trump-Pence administration.
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