Former Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he does not expect to mount a major political comeback and is unlikely to run for the White House again.
“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 hopes to remain involved in shaping conservative policy, though he did not specify what form that involvement might take. He founded the conservative think tank Advancing American Freedom in 2021 and pursued the GOP presidential nomination last year, but struggled to gain traction with 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.”
“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 on who should succeed Trump as the future leader of the GOP. Trump recently mentioned Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as possible 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.”