Ex-US VP Mike Pence takes on Donald Trump, his former boss, for 2024 Republican nomination

Pence, who turned 64 on Wednesday, didn’t point out Trump by identify within the video and argued that the US is in bother as a result of “President Joe Biden and the unconventional left have weakened America at dwelling and overseas.” Among the many threats he stated the nation confronted have been inflation, a looming recession and a southern US border “underneath siege.”

“Each time our nation has produced management that has referred to as upon this nation to do laborious issues, the American individuals have at all times risen to the problem,” Pence stated within the video. “And we are going to once more, we simply want authorities nearly as good as our individuals to do it.”

He’s focusing his marketing campaign on Iowa, the place he hopes to attach with evangelical voters and Iowans as a fellow Midwesterner. He begins with an occasion close to Des Moines on Wednesday.

Scott Reed, co-chairman of the tremendous political motion committee supporting Pence, instructed reporters final month, “We’re going to organise Iowa, all 99 counties, like we’re operating him for county sheriff.”

The previous vice-president is providing himself as the one conventional conservative within the area who can win the Republican nomination, defeat Biden – and govern with extra civility than Trump.

He evoked the reminiscence of President Ronald Reagan, who he stated “referred to as on Individuals to resume optimism, and consider in themselves once more, to consider in one another.”

As Trump’s vice-president, Pence was loyal to a degree critics referred to as obsequious. A breaking level got here through the January 6 revolt, when he refused Trump’s demand to reject Electoral School votes for Biden. Pence stated he didn’t have the constitutional authority, prompting some within the mob that stormed the US Capitol to chant “Grasp Mike Pence.”

Critics query whether or not Pence has a viable path by way of the primaries, given his incapability to this point to win over hard-core Trump supporters and Republicans on the lookout for another. He hasn’t but damaged out of the decrease tier of candidates in early polling regardless of his almost-universal identify recognition.

“I want him loads of luck,” Trump stated in an interview Monday with radio host Todd Starnes. “He’s a pleasant particular person. We had an excellent relationship till the very finish.”

Pence is promising to revive the insurance policies of what he calls the “Trump-Pence administration” which can be in style with Republican voters, whereas breaking from his former operating mate on election denialism and different points together with whether or not to make adjustments to Social Safety and Medicare.