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Mike Pence, the former US vice president, was harassed as a “traitor” for refusing to overturn last year’s election result during a speech to a rally of religious conservatives.
Pence, widely seen as laying the groundwork for the 2024 White House election, entered a hall in Orlando, Florida, to standing ovations on Friday. But a small group started shouting, “Traitor!” When he started a 28-minute speech. Soon the police escorted the defectors.
Earlier, in a corridor outside the ballroom, an attendee named Rick Hurley, who was wearing a red Make America Great Again hat, expressed frustration over Pence’s role in proving Donald Trump’s defeat on Jan. 6 amid false allegations of voter fraud.
“We need to start fighting!” Hurley shouted at anyone who would listen. “We need to stop being so nice. What the hell is going on? Why is Pence coming in today? Donald Trump still has his pen in his back.”
Before the police brushed him aside, he also said, “I’m ready to fight. I’m going to boo him off the stage. I’ll take the bullet. I’ll walk to the front of the stage and look him in the eye and say, ‘What are you doing here?”
In an interview, Hurley said he was at the US Capitol on January 6. “I want to know why a penny is here today.” He said. “He stabbed Donald Trump in the back and took coins like a Judas.”
But Ralph Reed, organizer of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual Way to Majority conference, was doing his best to give Pence a standing ovation and honor him as a champion of the conservative Christian movement.
And the former vice president, who admitted earlier this month that he and his ex-boss might “never get together” over the events of January 6, when some Trump supporters called for his execution, did not address the dispute during his remarks.
Instead he told the crowd, “Thank you for the privilege of serving as Vice President with Donald Trump. It was the greatest honor of my life.”
Pence made only a passing reference to the deadly insurgency that implied parity with the racial justice protests and Joe Biden’s policies: “We’ve all been through a lot over the past year: a global pandemic, civil disorder, a divisive election, a tragic day in our nation’s Capitol, and a new administration bent on change our country.”
Since leaving office, Pence has bought a house in Indiana, announced plans to create a podcast and signed a two-book deal for his memoirs. Despite the ire of some Trump supporters, he is seen as a potential candidate for the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2024.
His address to the conference on Friday duly listed the achievements of the Trump administration — from Supreme Court appointments to coronavirus vaccines — and aimed Biden to quickly dismantle his legacy through a “tidal wave of left-wing politics.”
“The Democrats have been so busy advancing their liberal agenda that sometimes I feel like the left hand doesn’t know what the far left is doing,” Pence said sarcastically.
He went on to attack the “explosion” of runaway spending, proposed tax increases, plans to cut military funding and scrap construction on Trump’s landmark border wall.
“Literally in five months, they turned the world’s safest border into the worst border crisis in American history,” Pence said to applause. “You know, when I was vice president, I visited our southern border. And yes, it’s time for our current vice president to go to the border, put our policies back in place and end the Biden border crisis today.”
He also made false assertions of pursuing “culture war” goals currently popular in conservative media including “abolishing culture” and “defunding the police”.
Among them is the critical race theory developed by academics beginning in the 1970s, which examines how racism embedded in law and institutions creates an unequal playing field for people of color in America. Several Republican-controlled states have moved to ban their teaching in schools.
Pence wrongly distorted the intellectual tool by saying, “Instead of teaching all our children to be proud of their country, critical race theory teaches preschool-aged children to be ashamed of the color of their skin. Critical race theory is racist, pure and simple—and should be rejected by every American of every Sweat “.
“The truth is that it is time for America to get rid of the left-wing backlash to see systemic racism throughout our nation. As my friend Senator Tim Scott says so well, America is not a racist country—America is the most just, noble, and totalitarian nation ever on Earth.”
In another controversial claim, Pence said, “The United States military is the greatest force the world has known for good.”
Pence ended a morning session that included Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, all of whom are potential contenders for the 2024 nomination. Trump himself has yet to announce whether he will run or whether Pence will run again.
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