Vice President of the United States from 2017 to 2021
Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. He served, from 2017 to 2021 as the 48th vice president of the United States. He also served from 2013 to 2017 as the 50th governor of Indiana, represented Indiana's 2nd congressional district and Indiana's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013, and served as chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2009 to 2011. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pence led the White House Coronavirus Task Force. After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, he refused to use his position as Vice President to decertify the results and rejected arguments from the Trump administration that he had a constitutional authority to do so. He started a campaign in the Republican Party primaries for the 2024 United States presidential election, but suspended it before voting began and endorsed Trump.
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The Constitution is quite clear about the role of the vice president in the counting of electoral votes. It essentially says the vice president presides over a joint session of Congress where the electoral votes that are certified by the states shall be opened and shall be counted. And irrespective of the indictment, I want the American people to know that I had no right to overturn the election. And that on that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution and I always will. … I really do believe that anyone who puts themself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. And anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.
In any health care crisis, we want to make sure the health care workers at the local level have the resources they need because it's locally executed. It is state managed. But it's federally supported. And the federal government at the president's direction will continue to support governors as they deploy the testing resources in the time and manner of their choosing. But we believe today, as Dr. Deborah Birx has confirmed, is we have a sufficient capacity of testing today for any state in America to move into phase one and begin the process of reopening their state and their economy.
Further, [President Clinton's] repeated lies to the American people in this matter compound the case against him as they demonstrate his failure to protect the institution of the presidency as the 'inspiring supreme symbol of all that is highest in our American ideals'. Leaders affect the lives of families far beyond their own 'private life.'
We believe we have the testing today around the country that would allow any state in America to move into phase one if they've met the other criteria: fourteen days of consistent declines and strong hospital capacity, so that their system would not be overwhelmed in the event of a flare-up. But we’re going to be working with governors tomorrow on the subject of testing and supplies. And as the President said again this evening: We’re here to help. We’ve forged a partnership with governors around the country, and tomorrow we’ll be building on that partnership to hopefully arrive at the day that we can make sure governors around the nation have the best advice and the best resources to put America back to work.
If his people who are called by His name will humble themselves and pray, He will do as He has done for generations and heal His people and He will heal this land, I leave here today confident that God is at work. Even though it may not seem that way God is working. Even when things don’t seem like they’re going the way we expected, they’re going the way God expected.
It really is good to be back with all the patriots in the NRA, men and women who stand on the ramparts of freedom, defending all the God-given liberties enshrined in the Constitution of the United States every day [...] With your support, the Trump-Pence administration championed freedom for four remarkable years, and every single day we stood without apology for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.