Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a parent’s rights rally on Feb. 15, 2023, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Charlie Neibergall | AP
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, denounced his own party’s “apologists” for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday while delivering a full-throated call for the U.S. to ramp up its support for Ukraine.
Pence, who served within the White House for 4 years under former President Donald Trump, didn’t call out any of his fellow Republicans by name. But he suggested that his criticism targeted GOP leaders.
“While some in my party have taken a somewhat different view, let me be clear: There could be no room within the leadership of the Republican Party for apologists for Putin,” Pence said. “There can only be room for champions of freedom.”
“If we give up to the siren song of those on this country who argue that America has no real interest in freedom’s cause, history teaches we may soon send our own into harm’s way,” Pence said later within the speech.
He also took a shot at President Joe Biden’s administration for being too hesitant to supply Ukraine with the supplies it needs to maintain up the fight.
“History teaches that he who hesitates is lost,” Pence said.
The previous vice chairman’s barbs got here in a speech marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the most important and bloodiest military conflict in Europe since World War II.
Pence, speaking on the University of Texas at Austin’s Clements Center for National Security, urged the U.S. and its allies to work “with increased speed” to inflict economic pain on Putin and his allies “until he relents” and pulls out of Ukraine.
He also called for America to “speed up the pace of military provisions” to Kyiv, and proceed providing ample humanitarian assistance to the tens of millions of people that have been caught up within the brutal conflict.
The Biden administration did take additional steps to bolster Ukraine on Friday, sending one other $2 billion in military aid, sanctioning greater than 200 additional people and entities and increasing tariffs on key Russian products.
Pence didn’t explicitly name Trump within the speech, except to notice that Russia had not attempted any similar international aggression through the Trump-Pence administration. But with reference to Putin and Ukraine, Pence’s remarks nevertheless offered a transparent contrast in tone between him and his former boss.
Trump, asked in an interview earlier Friday about sending money and arms to Ukraine, warned that “we will find yourself in World War III,” and asserted that the conflict “would never have happened” if he was still president. Trump also boasted that he was “tougher on Russia than anybody else” but added, “I still got together with Putin.”
Pence has openly said he’s considering a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, potentially pitting him directly against Trump. The previous president castigated Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, when the then-vice president refused to take part in a scheme to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Biden. A violent mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, sending the then-vice president and congressional lawmakers into hiding.
Pence has said Trump was “flawed” to consider he could have reversed the election consequence by rejecting key Electoral College votes for Biden. In a CNBC interview on Wednesday, Pence said he believes there will probably be “higher decisions” than Trump in 2024.
But as he considers in search of the nomination of a celebration that also broadly supports Trump, Pence has been quick to tout the Trump-Pence administration’s accomplishments, and he has not explicitly ruled out supporting Trump if he became the GOP nominee.
