BOSTON: Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday repeatedly invoked the Constitution and said it is what \u201cbinds us all together\u201d after receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
\nPence received the award for his refusal to go along with President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election. The award recognizes Pence \u201cfor putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on Jan. 6, 2021,\u201d the JFK Library Foundation said.
\n\u201cTo forge a future together, we have to find common ground,\u201d Pence said. \u201cI hope in some small way my presence here tonight is a reminder that whatever differences we may have as Americans, the Constitution is the common ground on which we stand. It\u2019s what binds us across time and generations. …. It\u2019s what makes us one people.\u201d
\nHis comments came hours after an interview with Trump aired in which he was asked whether US citizens and noncitizens both deserve due process as laid out in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. Trump was noncommittal.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not, I\u2019m not a lawyer. I don\u2019t know,\u201d Trump said when pressed in an interview with NBC\u2019s Kristen Welker. It was taped Friday at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and aired Sunday.
\nPence never mentioned Trump during his 10-minute speech but made several references to the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Referencing what he called \u201cthese divided times, in these anxious days,\u201d he acknowledged that he probably had differences with the Democrats in the room but also with his own Republican Party \u201con spending, tariffs and my belief that America is the leader of the free world and must stand with Ukraine until the Russian invasion is repelled and a just and lasting peace is secured.\u201d
\nTrump pressured Pence to reject election results from swing states where the Republican president falsely claimed the vote was marred by fraud. Pence refused, saying he lacked such authority. When a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to \u201chang Mike Pence.\u201d Pence was whisked away by Secret Service agents, narrowly avoiding a confrontation with the rioters.
\n\u201cMike Pence didn\u2019t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,\u201d Trump wrote at the time on X, formerly Twitter, as rioters moved through the Capitol and Pence was in hiding with his family, aides and security detail inside the building.<\/p>\n
Pence rejected the Secret Service\u2019s advice that he leave the Capitol, staying to continue the ceremonial election certification of Democrat Joe Biden\u2019s presidential victory once rioters were cleared.
\nIn describing his role, Pence told the audience that \u201cby God\u2019s grace I did my duty that day to support the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution of the United States of America.\u201d
\nThe Profile in Courage Award, named for a book Kennedy published in 1957 before he became president, honors public officials who take principled stands despite the potential political or personal consequences. Previous recipients of the award include former Presidents Barack Obama, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford.
\nPence has emerged as one of the few Republicans willing to take on the Trump administration.
\nHis political action group, Advancing American Freedom, campaigned against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation\u2019s health agencies. He\u2019s delivered speeches urging the president to stand with longtime foreign allies and posted an article he penned more than a decade ago on the limits of presidential power after Trump claimed that, \u201cHe who saves his Country does not violate any Law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOSTON: Former Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday repeatedly invoked the Constitution and said it is what \u201cbinds us all together\u201d after receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. Pence received the award for his refusal to go along with President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80579"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80607,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80579\/revisions\/80607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}