WASHINGTON — Red-and-blue spotlights flashed from the ceiling as former Vice President Mike Pence took the stage. Anthemic music echoed from the hotel ballroom speakers surrounding him. A few spectators lifted their cell phones to take pictures.
But the festive tones and heavy bass couldn’t distract from the fact that for many Republicans, the party was just down the street in the nation’s capital, where preparations were being made for former President Donald J. Trump’s speech later in the year. day.
One of the most uneasy splits within the Republican Party was evident on Tuesday when the two-time running mates — and potential rivals on the 2024 presidential campaign trail — would offer competing visions for the country from two Marriott hotels that run through less than a mile in downtown Washington.
Mr. Pence went first, delivering a speech Tuesday morning that omitted the lavish praise for Mr Trump that he had regularly injected into his speeches as vice president. Instead, he made a subtle distinction between Mr Trump’s fixation on the 2020 election and his own preference for fighting the next political battles.
“Some people may choose to focus on the past, but elections are about the future,” Pence said.
He referred only in passing to January 6, 2021, as a “tragic day,” days after the House committee investigating the Capitol riots overturned Mr Trump’s refusal to call off the violence on January 6, 2021, and the fear that members of Mr. Pence felt for their lives.
Donald Trump, after the presidency
The former president remains a powerful force in Republican politics.
The hearing led to scathing editorials from two newspapers run by the Murdoch family: The New York Post said the revelations showed Mr Trump was “unworthy” to run for president again, while The Wall Street Journal believed Mr Trump was had “completely failed”. to tackle the crisis.
And on Monday, news broke that two of Pence’s top officials had testified before a federal grand jury in Washington as part of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the events surrounding the riot.
In his speech, Mr. Pence has repeatedly referred to the achievements of the “Trump-Pence” administration when he called for a movement of cultural conservatives to reverse a “pernicious awakening agenda” that, he argued, would “allow the radical left to continue continue dumping toxic waste in the upper reaches of our culture.”
Mr. Pence celebrated the recent Supreme Court ruling eliminating the federal right to abortion, noting that the decision was made possible thanks to three judges “appointed by the Trump-Pence administration.”
“We’ll save the babies, we’ll save America,” he said.
Pence, a mild-mannered former governor of Indiana, described himself as focused on the future and eager to tell President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia things he “didn’t want to hear.”
But he couldn’t escape the direct contrast with Mr. Trump. When mr. Pence finished his speech, the audience’s first question from young conservatives at a Young America’s Foundation conference was about Mr. Trump “and the gap between you two”.
“I don’t know if our movement is that divided — I don’t know that the president and I disagree on certain matters, but we can differ in focus,” said Mr. pennies.
According to their advisers, Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence were in fairly regular contact after they left office. In an interview last year, Mr. Trump said he never told Mr. Pence that he was sorry he hadn’t acted more quickly to stop the attack — and that Mr. Pence never asked for an apology.
But behind the scenes, a rivalry flares up.
On Monday, Mr. Pence announced that his book on his time in government, “So Help Me God,” would be published on Nov. 15. The book was a source of tension with Mr. Trump, who, when he learned in early 2021 that Mr. Pence had a book deal, was still musing about getting one himself.
But in most parts of the publishing world, Trump was widely seen as a risk. The former president seemed frustrated that Mr. Pence had struck a deal, and within days of learning about it, he attacked the former vice president while speaking to a group of Republican donors at a Republican National Committee event in March. a-Lago, seizing Mr. Pence’s refusal to do what Mr. Trump wanted on Jan. 6, 2021.
The paths of the two men also differ on the medium-term campaign path this year. They have backed opposing candidates in several primaries, including the Republican governor’s contest in Arizona, which will be decided next week, and the party’s primary for governor in Georgia, where Mr. Pence’s pick, Governor Brian Kemp, is an easy one. Trump defeated. backed challenger, David Perdue.
Mr. Pence is widely regarded as considering a 2024 presidential bid, but he would face some tough challenges.
In a DailyExpertNews/Siena College poll of Republican voters this month, just 6 percent said they would vote for Pence if the 2024 Republican primaries were held today, compared to 49 percent for Trump and 25 percent for Gov. Ron DeSantis from Florida.
Maggie Haberman reporting contributed.