Former Vice President joined me this AM:

Audio:

07-24hhs-pence

Transcript:

HH: Joined by former Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Vice President, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

MP: Hey, good to be with you, Hugh. Thanks for having me on.

HH: Well, I want everyone to go to www.mikepence2024.com if they want to support you, if they want to learn about the campaign. We’ll come back to the campaign in a second. But if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Vice President, you and the former president are the only two people running for office who have ever received the daily brief who understand, had all the clearances you could.

MP: Right.

HH: So I want to ask you three national security questions this morning, beginning…

MP: Sure.

HH: …the threat that Vladimir Putin made in the company of Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, that any attack on Belarus would be an attack on Russia. And then the Belarusian leader made the claim that the Wagner people in Belarus are wanting to go to Warsaw. What would be the obligation to the United States in the event that Wagner, Belarus or Russian troops attacked Poland?

MP: Well, there’s no question what the obligation would be under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. We’d be required to support Poland. We would be required to be involved militarily. It’s one of the reasons why look, I’ve said many times, I mean, Joe Biden has done a terrible job explaining what our interest is in Ukraine. He keeps giving these gauzy speeches about democracy. And for all the world, it sounds like another campaign speech. And our interest there, and the reason why we should continue on an increasing basis to give the Ukrainian military what they need to repel the Russian invasion, is because we never want to see the day that the Russian military, whether it’s a Wagner group in Belarus or otherwise, crosses the border of a NATO country where our troops would be required to fight. I mean, that’s how you get peace through strength, is by living out the Reagan doctrine, which always said if you’re willing to fight the Communists on your grounds with your soldiers, we’ll give you what you need to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them. And yet, there are too many voices in our party that are sounding the retreat, that are willing to let Putin keep the land grab that he’s made in Eastern Ukraine, willing to make promises. I heard my former running mate announced over the weekend that he’s willing to promise that Ukraine will never be in NATO. I mean, look, in my opinion, the only thing Putin will understand is strength, and providing those courageous fighters in Ukraine what they need to repel the Russian invasion is the fastest way to security and preventing, preventing the day that American forces are actually required to go into battle in Europe again.

HH: What do you think Lukashenko and Putin are doing here? The Telegraph calls it a setup for a false flag operation.

MP: Yeah, right.

HH: Or is it just mind games?

MP: Yeah, look, the only, look, I would hardly ever counsel Hugh Hewitt on foreign policy. But you and I both know the only thing you can know for sure about anything coming out of Russia is you don’t know for sure.

HH: Okay, well said.

MP: Nothing is as it seems. I mean, when you find out that after Prigozhin does this supposed coup against Putin, now we found out in the last week that they apparently met a couple days later and had a conversation. And you know, the whole thing could have just been a put-up job for Putin to flush out his enemies in his own government. I wouldn’t have put it past him. I mean, this, you know, I do like what was once said by another presidential candidate. He said he looked into Putin’s eyes, and he didn’t see his soul. He saw KGB. That’s who you’re dealing with. And so nothing is as it seems, and the acolyte state of Belarus that I just wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. And that’s why we just need to stay strong in this effort and continue to demand that the Biden administration stop dragging their feet on providing arms in Ukraine, which they’ve been doing for the last year and a half. Give those people what they need, and they can win this war, and secure the peace of Europe and the security of our country.

HH: Now Vivek Ramaswamy, who you’ll be sharing a stage with on Friday at the Iowa GOP Lincoln Day dinner, and with all the other candidates who are going to have their speeches in Iowa. Vivek was throwing shade on NATO this weekend on Fox News Sunday. Meanwhile, the U.S. and 13 allies were holding a record-setting military exercise in Australia.

MP: Yeah.

HH: It seems to me that this might be a time for us to expand our alliances, Mr. Vice President, not sever them.

MP: Well, we have to be strengthening our alliances. The last thing that we ought to do is try and secure peace in Ukraine by rewarding Vladimir Putin’s naked and brutal invasion into that country by giving him the land, and giving him promises never to have Ukraine be a part of NATO. Look, and this has everything to do with the wider world, Hugh. I mean, there’s no question in my mind that if we end up capitulating to Putin’s aggression, that will only embolden President Xi in his military ambitions in the Asian Pacific. And I just think this is one of those moments where we learned hard lessons in the first half of the 20th Century where America, we thought we could hang back. We thought we could hang back within our borders and watch as the world became more unstable and unfurled, and we learned hard lessons, then having to come into the fight, both in World War I, and especially in World War II. And we won those fights for freedom, but we’ve secured the peace now for three-quarters of a century because we’ve been willing to stand strong. We’ve been willing to be the arsenal of democracy. And if I’m president of the United States, I promise you we’re going to live out that commitment of being leader of the free world. And let me also say, you know, I had a sporting debate on stage about a week or so ago with a former Fox News host that got some play on the internet. I just don’t think we have to choose between solving problems here at home, which is that you know, an economy that’s failing, the border crisis, the crisis in energy, the crime wave in our cities. I don’t think we have to choose between solving problems here at home and being the leader of the free world. We can do both. And anybody who says we can’t has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth.

HH: Now Mr. Vice President, third, I’m playing rapid-fire national security, but a lot happened this weekend. Right now, they are voting in the Israel Knesset on the reform of the Israeli Supreme Court. It’s got nothing to do with America. It’s an internal Israeli domestic issue. Yesterday, President Biden told Israel to stop, slow down, and not do that. And Tom Friedman wrote one of the most extraordinary columns I’ve ever read in the New York Times telling the president, it’s addressed to Dear President Biden, that the October, 1973 intervention by Richard Nixon to save Israel is what he’s facing right now. He has to save Israel by getting involved, by speaking the truth. What do you make of the intervention of an American president into the internal domestic politics and policy and judiciary of an ally?

MP: Look, I said many times, and I was at Christians United For Israel a week ago, Hugh, and I was honored to receive some recognition, their defender of Israel award. I was humbled by that. Look, we were, I was a part of the most pro-Israel administration in American history, I always would say. And I will tell you, if I’m president of the United States, if the world knows nothing else, the world will know this. America stands with Israel. And this preoccupation of Democrats, which literally goes back, you know, decades of trying to micromanage what’s happening in the domestic politics in Israel, is wrongheaded. And it undermines a clear message to one of the most dangerous parts of the world of our commitment to our most cherished ally. I reject it categorically. I’m a great admirer of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s absolutely determined to see this court reform through, and I think we ought to let Israel be Israel. Let them sort these things out domestically, and our position should just be to always give them what they need to defend themselves by themselves, and to make it clear in the region and in the world that America stands with Israel, period, paragraph.

HH: Okay, on that period, paragraph, let’s turn to the campaign in the three or four minutes we have left, Mr. Vice President.

MP: Yeah.

HH: www.MikePence2024.com. Dana Bash asked you yesterday, and you said you’re getting there, you’re not at 40,000, yet.

MP: Right.

HH: Where is most of your support coming from? And where do you want it to come from?

MP: Well, we just, we’re just really, I’m very humbled by the fact that we easily cleared the requirement of being a certain number in the polls. I mean, for millions of Americans, I’m their first choice for president. And so we easily cleared the threshold, along with, I guess, a half a dozen others. But we haven’t yet gotten to 40,000 individual donors. We’re working literally around the clock for that. People can go, as you’ve kindly said, to www.MikePence2024.com. If they want someone who’s been fighting in the conservative movement for the last 30 years, if they want someone who’s not just was part of a conservative administration and proud of the record that we created, but also was a governor of a state that cut taxes and created record employment before I left, and also was, as you know, Hugh, when we first met, I was a House conservative leader before that was cool. I mean, I was the leader of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the Congress. If people are looking for that level of experience, for principled, conservative leadership on the stage in that debate in one month, they can go to www.MikePence2024.com, even give a buck and do their part to get us there. And I’m confident we’ll get there, but we’re not taking anything for granted, because I think the stakes are too high. And I really do believe that it’s absolutely essential that we keep our party on that time-honored path of American leadership at home and abroad, of commitment to conservative principles and policies. I’ll be that voice in this party, and I’m looking forward to being that voice on that debate stage in a month.

HH: Mr. Vice President, thank you for joining me this morning, making time. The interview with Dana yesterday was pretty interesting. I’ll be playing it in the Aftershow today, and I appreciate you making time this morning. www.MikePence2024.com. Thank you, sir.

MP: Thank you, Hugh. Always great to be on.

HH: Thank you.

End of interview.