LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Former Vice President Mike Pence told the annual leadership summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition that he is dropping out of the 2024 race for the Republican nomination for president.
Pence said that after traveling the country, he had realized that his time to lead was not now.
“To the American people, I say: This is not my time, but it is still your time.”
Pence urged voters to choose a candidate who would appeal to the “better angels of our nature, and not only lead us to victory, but lead our nation back to civility.”
He thanked the audience for the “greatest honor” of serving as vice president.
Earlier in his speech, Pence said the U.S. should support Israel throughout its fight against Hamas until the Palestinian terror group is destroyed “once and for all.”
Pence condemned the October 7 terror attack by Hamas, and declared why America stood with Israel:
We stand with Israel for the same reason the American people have always stood with Israel. We stand with Israel because her cause is our cause. Her values are our values. Her fight is our fight. We stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good over evil. And as believing Americans have for generations, we stand with Israel because Israel’s very existence is proof that God’s promises are true.
The remedy, Pence said, starts with electing Republicans to the White House and Congress — to ensuring that “Joe Biden will never be reelected as President of the United States.”
Biden, Pence said, “seemed to say the right things” after the Hamas terror attack, but seemed to be holding Israel back in the days that followed. He called to “end all talk of restraint and support Israel’s right to self-defense unconditionally.”
He also called for “snapback sanctions” on Iran, rather than the continued pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran.
Pence went on to warn that Republicans faced a “time for choosing” between “traditional conservatives” on the one hand or “the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.