After break-up, Mike Pence prepares ground for post-Trump Republican Party 

After breaking with his former boss over the January 6 attack, former Vice President Mike Pence is laying the groundwork for a post‑Trump Republican Party.

In an interview with MS NOW, Pence said he is assembling a team through his think tank, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), aimed at steering the party away from President Donald Trump and back towards a conservative movement in the mould of Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party.

Pence lamented that the Republican Party has become person‑centric rather than value‑centric. He said the idea driving his efforts is that Republicans should enter the 2028 elections focused on “what we’re for before we focus on who we’re for”.

Pence rejected the notion that Trump should have a veto over the future of the Republican Party. He said that “the overwhelming majority of people in our movement cherish those conservative principles, and I want to continue to be a voice for that”.

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Pence further said, “I really do believe not only are these conservative principles a pathway for success for the Republican Party. Over the last 50 years, they’ve resulted in a more prosperous, more secure America. I think that that’s where our movement needs to return and to revive —and, in many ways, rediscover— the conservative principles that first came to national prominence with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.”

They fell out after Pence refused to endorse Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Their rift spiralled into open hostility on January 6, 2021, when Trump egged on an armed mob of his supporters to attack Capitol Hill, disrupt the certification of the election result, and overturn the election in his favour. Attackers sought to kill Pence, but he and members of Congress were rescued. A total of seven people were killed and more than 100 were injured in the attack.

Trump later defended his supporters and said it was “common sense” that they would want to hang Pence for not joining the effort to overturn the election.

Trump’s policies a ‘profound departure’ from conservatism: Pence

Pence criticised Trump’s policies as being outside the conservative tradition.

Pence said tariffs are “a profound departure” from core conservative principles and have left the economy “struggling”.

On foreign policy, Pence criticised the isolationist wing of Trump’s platform and said he was “disappointed … to hear my successor [JD Vance] recently boasting about the fact that we had ended support for Ukraine”.

Pence’s think tank, AAF, has attracted former staffers from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative institution for generations that has shunned conservative values over the past decade to become a cheerleader for Trump — several staffers have left over its support for White supremacists within the Maga movement.

Among other reasons, Pence attributed the exodus to AAF to “the lack of separation from, you know, open antisemitism was significant”.