Pence Escalates Critique With Specific Targets

Former Vice President Mike Pence broke sharply with the Trump administration on Sunday, attaching concrete numbers and names to his GOP critique in ways that went beyond his previous statement after Ken Paxton's primary win.

Pence called Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund — currently tied up in courts — "a bad idea from the start" and urged the administration to "just drop it," according to NBC News.

His exact words: "It's deeply offensive to me that you could have a fund that could even possibly compensate people who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol on January 6."

That's a former vice president calling a sitting president's DOJ initiative offensive on the record, on national television.

Direct Attack on RFK Jr.

Pence specifically called out HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as "pro-abortion" — a striking statement from a man who helped appoint the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. According to USA Today, Pence said Kennedy "has done nothing to limit the availability of the abortion pill."

His broader point: the Trump administration is "relegating the right to life to a state-only issue." For the Republican Party's most prominent anti-abortion voice, that's a direct accusation that the second Trump term has abandoned the movement.

The Populist Right as the Real Target

Pence is identifying what he calls "the populist right" as a separate ideological force attempting to permanently reshape the GOP. According to USA Today, Pence said: "The populist right is attempting to take the president's departure from the conservative agenda... and try to make that the new foundational philosophy of the Republican Party."

He's making a distinction between Trump and the movement he says is using Trump as a vehicle to lock in tariffs, nationalism, and isolationism as permanent Republican doctrine.

Pence also claimed that most MAGA voters don't actually support what the populist right is selling. Per NBC News, he said: "I believe that the overwhelming majority of people in the MAGA movement believe that America is the leader of the free world, believe in limited government, less taxes, less regulations, would reject ideas like nationalization of businesses and price controls and broad-based tariffs."

Where He Credited Trump

Pence did credit Trump for securing the border, extending the tax cuts from the first term, and standing with Israel — according to both Breitbart and NBC News.

"I don't think there's any question about the president's popularity," Pence said. "I give him all the credit in the world for the hold that he has on Republican voters."

He came to promote his new book, "What Conservatives Believe," and is using every platform to define what he thinks the GOP should return to: American leadership, limited government, free markets, and the right to life.

The Jan. 6 History Fight Continues

Pence also told The Hill there has been a "clear" effort to "rewrite" the history of January 6, 2021. He said he's confident in the "judgment of history" on that day.

The anti-weaponization fund comment provides context: he's not going to stay quiet while a federal fund potentially writes checks to people who were at the Capitol that day.

The Coverage Split

Left-leaning outlets like NBC News are framing this as validation of their anti-Trump narrative, emphasizing the "departed from conservative principles" line.

Right-leaning outlets like Breitbart are covering his quotes accurately but without much pushback — likely because his sharpest critiques align with their own concerns about the anti-weaponization fund and RFK Jr.

Pence is making a structural argument about party identity rather than simply listing policy complaints. He's saying the populist right represents a takeover attempt.

The Broader Warning

Pence warned that if Republicans hold the Senate and House this fall, it will be "because of the extremism on the Democratic side" — not because the GOP earned it. Per NBC News, he said: "Republicans have lost our way, but Democrats have lost their mind."

He contends the party drifted, calls the anti-weaponization fund indefensible, and named RFK Jr. directly for his abortion pill stance. Whether anyone inside the current GOP is listening remains unclear.