Former Vice President Mike Pence praised Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) for his “moral courage” in pushing for votes on foreign aid despite a campaign against the bills that puts his power at risk.
Pence made the comments during a Thursday afternoon appearance on CNN. During his interview with Jake Tapper, Pence fielded a pointed question over whether he feels, as Donald Trump’s ex-vice president, that he “played any role in the erosion of the Reagan ideology that you stand for.”
Pence handled it by first praising Johnson for continuing to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, despite the potential consequences.
“Well, first let me not skip over the fact I think Speaker Mike Johnson is in a tough spot,” he began. “Look, it’s a very narrow majority, and, I think what the American people will witness here is nothing short of moral courage. Here Speaker Mike Johnson has decided to do what he believes is right and trust the American people with the outcome in this moment. And I commend him for that.”
Then Pence answered Tapper’s query directly, calling it a “fair question.”
“I would tell you, I honestly believe the emergence of this new Republican isolationism, I believe, is something that has come forth in the last three years, particularly with the disaster at our southern border, the record inflation, and the Russian invasion into Ukraine. I think you have many Republicans that are falling back to the notion that that we’ve got problems here at home, we can’t solve every problem in the world,” submitted Pence.
He continued:
When the reality is that anyone that says that we can’t secure our border, revive our economy, and be the leader of the free world has got a pretty small view of the greatest nation on earth. We’ve done both now for 75 years. We can do both again. And, in our administration I honestly believe, Jake, that, you know, we built up our military. We stood with our allies, stood up to our enemies. We didn’t go looking for foreign entanglements, but, when the moment presented itself, whether it’s a fight against ISIS taking down Qasem Soleimani, cruise missiles into Syria, we were willing to use American force. And that’s, that’s the opposite of isolationism. That’s American leadership.
Notably, Trump weighed in on the debate over foreign aid on Thursday in a way that did not express an affirmative position, but did seem to cut against Johnson’s case for it.
“Why isn’t Europe giving more money to help Ukraine? Why is it that the United States is over $100 Billion Dollars into the Ukraine War more than Europe, and we have an Ocean between us as separation!” mused Trump on Truth Social. “Why can’t Europe equalize or match the money put in by the United States of America in order to help a Country in desperate need?”
Watch above via CNN.
