CNN
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Former Vice President Mike Pence says he thinks isolationists “may have lost some of their footing” in President Donald Trump’s administration, as he praised Trump’s tougher talk toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.
Pence, since his split with Trump after the 2020 election, has often criticized the president’s approach to Russia and his tepid support for Ukraine.
But he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan in an interview Thursday he hopes Trump is “starting to recognize” that Putin is not interested in a negotiated end to the war he started in Ukraine. And he praised Trump’s decision this week to reverse his administration’s pause on some weapons shipments to Ukraine, including air defense missiles.
“While I had concerns and expressed them in those first 100 days about the president’s kind of ongoing hope and desire for a negotiated settlement, I welcome his decisions this week and his rhetoric,” he said.
Pence said Trump’s sharper criticism of Putin and support for Ukraine could be the result of Trump tuning out those advocating isolationist policies after some criticized the United States’ direct military involvement in Israel’s efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“I think what may have changed is that some of the isolationist voices in and around this administration have recently condemned the president’s correct and courageous decision to launch a military assault against Iran,” Pence said. “I think they may have lost some of their footing with the president.”
Pence said that Trump “is not an isolationist.”
“His bias is to lead,” he said. “I think he understands that America is the leader of the free world.”
He also called on Trump to provide Ukraine with “offensive capability” in addition to air defense missiles and he urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune to bring a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill to the floor for a vote. Thune said Wednesday that the Senate could take up the legislation before the August recess..
GOP lawmakers are seeking not to get ahead of the White House on the measure, but Pence said he “spoke Trump fluently for four years” and noted that Trump said Tuesday he is “looking very strongly” at the bill. He suggested it could strengthen Trump’s hand against Putin.
“When I saw the other day that he said he’s strongly looking at it, I know what that means,” Pence said. “My hope is that the president will understand the value of the Senate acting, and they can put that on his desk.”
Pence broke with Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, who on Wednesday — in the wake of the disastrous flooding in Texas — reiterated her desire to “eliminate” the Federal Emergency Management Agency and remake the way it operates.
Noem, at a meeting of the FEMA Review Council, said disaster response should be led by state and local governments, rather than the federal agency.
“It has been slow to respond at the federal level,” said Noem, a former South Dakota governor. “It’s even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis, and that is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency.”
Pence, who was governor of Indiana prior to serving as vice president alongside Trump for four years, said he takes Noem’s point that states play the primary role in disaster response. But he also said FEMA provides a “backstop of expertise and personnel and the ability to be on the ground, getting resources directly to the American people to help rebuild their lives.”
“I think making sure that the federal government is there, speeding those resources to hurting Americans, is important and should be continued,” Pence said.
The former vice president, a long-time critic of tariffs, also urged Congress to step in and assert its authority as Trump tacks steep fees on most goods entering the United States.
“I think it’s absolutely important that the Congress essentially reclaim, in the spirit of the separation of powers, its control over setting industrial policy, setting tax policy, setting tariff policy,” he said.
Pence paired his call for Congress to check the president on tariffs with praise for the far-reaching policy law Trump signed last week to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts, slash spending and impose work requirements on Medicaid and more.
As Democrats prepare to highlight cuts to Medicaid entering the 2026 midterm elections, Pence said he believes if Congress steps in on tariff policy, the GOP can also sell the new law to voters.
“I think that, combined with telling the story about how they extended those tax cuts, defunded Planned Parenthood, reformed Medicaid, rebuilt our military, is a winning message in 2026 and beyond,” he said.
