Former Vice President Mike Pence is establishing independence from former President Donald Trump as he mulls a 2024 White House bid, warning in a speech to Republican donors that the party is threatening to squander opportunities for big gains in 2022 “by fighting yesterday’s battles, or by re-litigating the past.”
Barely two days later, Nikki Haley, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, hugged Trump tight, reaffirming previous commitments to shelve her presidential ambitions two years from now if the former president mounts a third White House bid.
“I have said that if President Trump runs, I will not run,” Haley told NBC’s Meet the Press.
Pence has made no such promises. If anything, the former vice president has signaled the opposite.
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It’s a significant role reversal for these two aspiring presidential contenders and rival Trump administration alumni as each plots increasingly divergent paths to a 2024 presidential campaign.
Typically cautious, Pence has shown a growing willingness to oppose his old boss, as demonstrated Friday during an address to GOP donors gathered for a Republican National Committee retreat when the former vice president subtly but unmistakably took a shot at Trump’s unsupported claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Usually bold, Haley since early 2021 has consistently moved to limit the risk of confrontation with Trump — on virtually every conceivable topic.
“Donors love Haley,” said a Republican operative, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “But Pence is doing a better job of defining himself as an independent figure in the party.”
Haley’s relationship with Trump has been up and down. Her record on topics that rank high on the former president’s agenda includes areas of sharp disagreement, including on international trade.
Where they disagree, the former South Carolina governor has never hesitated to say so, and indeed, during her tenure in Trump’s Cabinet, she was among his more regular critics, although she managed to distance herself without fracturing their partnership. For instance, Haley consistently criticized Russian strongman Vladimir Putin while serving as U.N. ambassador — in stark contrast to her boss. Meanwhile, in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Haley and Trump endorsed opposing Republican primary candidates.
But their relationship deteriorated in early 2021, in the aftermath of Haley recognizing President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election and sharply criticizing how Trump handled his loss in the ensuing months. Haley has openly sought to repair relations with the former president and prefers lately to emphasize their areas of agreement. But a spokeswoman for the former ambassador said that is keeping with common practice for Haley since she departed Trump’s Cabinet in late 2018.
“Ambassador Haley respects President Trump and is proud of the Trump administration’s record and her service in it,” spokeswoman Chaney Denton said Monday. “On the occasional instances in which she disagrees, she does not hesitate to voice her views.”
Since leaving office, Trump’s priority has been exposing what he insists was a conspiracy to elect Biden and deny him a second term. The 45th president raises the topic in nearly every speech and in nearly every interview. That’s why Pence’s dig at Republicans who focus on rehashing the last election — “Republicans can only win by offering real, lasting solutions to the problems Democrats have created,” he added — stood out.
Pence’s remarks that “there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin” amounted to yet another contrast with Trump, who has hesitated to criticize the Russian strongman, personally, for Moscow’s deadly, unprovided invasion of Ukraine. Pence’s latest veiled criticism of the president he served comes on the heels of public comments in which he declared Trump “wrong” about key aspects of the Jan. 6, 2021, congressional certification of Biden’s victory.
Republican financiers, many of whom once doubted Pence’s political mettle, are noticing.
“I have had a few unlikely donors reach out to me noting how pleased they are that Pence is working to establish his own brand again and not be defined by the madness coming out of Palm Beach,” said a Republican insider who interacts with the party’s wealthy contributors, referencing Trump’s Mar-a-Lago headquarters.
Pence’s more aggressive approach to Trump this year follows a first year out of the vice presidency that saw him shy away from confrontation with the former president.
Like Haley now, Pence attempted to spotlight solely those topics on which they agree and on his pride in having served in a critical role in the administration. He did everything he could to downplay their split over the post-election period, punctuated by the former president essentially calling him a coward for refusing to overturn the 2020 election during congressional certification while presiding over the process as vice president.
Pence’s political operation responded to a request for comment but did not provide one by press time.
Amid kudos from Republican donors for Pence’s tougher line in response to Trump’s criticism, including saying in a recent address to a group of conservative lawyers that the former president was flat “wrong” to claim he could have “overturned” the 2020 election, some party insiders are warning that the former vice president is risking a rift with the GOP base.
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a devoted Trump supporter, said grassroots Republicans care deeply about what they view as the pervasive fraud that occurred in crucial swing states in the 2020 election. Suggesting the party should ignore what happened, or stop talking about it, would be a grave political error, Schlapp said, although he conceded that prominent Republicans should, as Pence recommended, focus on this year’s elections and the future.
“Pence is saying we shouldn’t re-litigate 2020 — I can’t imagine he’s saying we have to look the other way from all the wrongdoing from 2020,” Schlapp said, giving the former vice president the benefit of the doubt, as delivered Friday evening at the RNC donor retreat.
Pence and Haley were close allies during their tenure as governor of Indiana and South Carolina, respectively. But when their careers brought both into the Trump administration, a rivalry of sorts developed, especially among top advisers to both Republicans. Although the former vice president and the former ambassador tend to speak warmly of each other in public, their political teams continue to keep a wary eye on the other.
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And in a break from the norm, Haley recently admonished Pence for declaring Trump “wrong” for claiming he, as vice president, had the constitutional authority to block congressional certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory.
“I’m not a fan of Republicans going against Republicans,” Haley told Fox News’s Bret Baier. “The only ones that win when that happens are the Democrats and the media.”
