Former Vice President Mike Pence says last week’s midterm elections showed Americans are “looking for new leadership” in 2024—i.e., not Donald Trump again. In an interview with the Associated Press just hours after Trump announced another tilt at the presidency, Pence refused to say whether his old boss was fit to return to the White House. “But,” the AP noted, “he implicitly positioned himself as a potential alternative for Republicans seeking conservative leadership without the chaos of the Trump era.” Relations between the former running mates never recovered after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters rampaged through the Capitol shouting, “Hang Mike Pence!” Pence said that Trump had “every right” to stand again, but after campaigning across the country for the midterms he had “a genuine sense that the American people are looking for new leadership that could unite our country around our highest ideals and that would reflect the respect and civility the American people show to one another every day, while still advancing the policies that we advanced during those years of service.” Pence said he and his family would give “prayerful consideration” as to their own future role.
