Pence: Trump ‘Backing Away’ from U.S. as Leader of the Free World, Talking Language of Appeasement on Russian Aggression

On Sunday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “MediaBuzz,” former Vice President Mike Pence, who is seeking next year’s Republican presidential nomination, criticized his former boss on foreign policy.

Partial transcript as follows:

KURTZ: Here’s what I don’t get. You’re constantly praising the four-year conservative record of the Trump-Pence administration.

PENCE: Yes. Right.

KURTZ: Now you turn around and say that you’re the real conservative in the race and that Donald Trump is offering, and this is a quote, a siren song of populism unmoored from true conservatism. How is that possible? Did he morph into something else?

PENCE: When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised to govern as a conservative. For four years we governed as conservatives. We rebuilt our military. We stood strong on the world stage. We exercised American leadership. We stood with our allies, stood up to our enemies. Our military took down the ISIS caliphate. We stood with Israel as never before. We took down —

KURTZ: Not a long list?

PENCE: — Qasem Soleimani. Here at home, we cut taxes, we rolled back regulations, and we appointed conservatives to our courts at every level, including three of the justices that sent Roe vs. Wade to the ash heap of history. We governed as conservatives.

But I will tell you what voters deserve to know is that Donald Trump makes no such promise today. He’s backing away from America as leader of the free world, talking the language of appeasement in the face of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and the war raging in Ukraine.

With regard to entitlements, Howie, Donald Trump’s position is identical to Joe Biden’s. Neither one of them even want to talk about what’s mostly driving security.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor