Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared on CNN’s “News Central,” where he discussed the shift within the Republican Party toward populism. He argued that populism is a danger to conservative principles.
“I wanted people to know around the country that, a new threat to conservatism has emerged from within our movement. And it’s, I call it the populist right. And essentially advances policies of protectionism, isolationism, marginalizing traditional values,” he said.
“And while they’ve had some success prevailing on the second Trump administration, not all, I think the second Trump administration has gotten a lot right. Secured the border, extended all those Trump Pence, tax cuts, stood up to Iran, stood with Israel but when you look at when you look at the stops and starts on Ukraine, by this administration, when you look at, the, you know, voices on the outside that have even questioned our support for Israel and the economic policies, nationalization of businesses, broad based tariffs against friend and foe alike, price controls,” he continued. “I wanted to write a book that it was about what conservatives believe in the hopes that in the midterms and in 2028, we return our party to those founding principles.”
“I want a lot of it to endure,” Pence later added. “Look, I love my country, I want to see the president be successful. But what I don’t want to see is people on the populist right conflating the president’s personal popularity with a new agenda that’s far afield from the conservative agenda, and that’s where I why I wrote ‘What Conservatives Believe.'”
In 2024, Pence launched a project intended to halt the “siren song of populism.” The effort, called the “American Solutions Project,” sought to promote traditional conservative policies.
