Mike Pence announces he is running for President of the United States

Former Vice President of the United States, Republican Mike Pence announced his participation in the presidential race, a campaign video was published on the politician’s Twitter page.

“Today our country has a lot of problems… new times require new leaders… It would be easy to stand aside. But that’s not how I was raised. So today, before God and my family, I announce that I will participate in the election of the President of the United States,” he said.

Among the main threats to the United States, Pence called the weakening of the country by the Joe Biden administration and the “radical left”, rising prices and falling incomes, the migration crisis in the south of the country, as well as “enemies of freedom” abroad.

Pence’s main rival in the next Republican Party primaries will be former President Donald Trump, who Pence served, who has already announced his participation in the presidential race, according to evaluation Reuters, with “unwavering loyalty” as vice president until the events of January 2021

Then Pence, being the formal head of the Senate, refused to stop the procedure for approving the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Biden won. As a result of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Pence and the parliamentarians had to evacuate the building in a hurry by radical supporters of the defeated Trump, and the ex-president himself accused his colleague of cowardice.

“I had no right to cancel the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone in the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump to account,” Pence later commented on those events.

As noted by Reuters, there have been only a few cases in US history when a vice president ran against the president under whom he served.

On May 25, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida also announced his participation in the presidential race. DeSantis will become the main rival of Trump, who announced his nomination for the post of head of state back in November 2022. So far, the ex-president is more than twice as popular as the governor of Florida, Vedomosti wrote.

On April 25, incumbent President Biden announced his participation in the election. In the video, he vowed to “defend democracy” and oppose “MAGA extremists” (an acronym for former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political slogan). The current US Vice President Kamala Harris also announced her readiness to participate in the election race in the Biden team.