Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to supporters as he formally announces his intention to seek the Republican presidential nomination on June 7, 2023 in Ankeny, Iowa.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Several 2024 Republican presidential candidates have criticized Donald Trump Sunday as a former president faces 37 federal counts for allegedly hoarding documents after he left the White House.
After his indictment, Trump lashed out at his critics — including members of his former staff — and called his former attorney general, Bill Barr “Heartless Pig” and his former chief of staff John Kelly “weak” sa “VERY small ‘brain’.”
Former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christiewho announced his to run for president said earlier this month that Trump’s comments indicated he was “the worst manager in the history of an American president.”
“He’s a petulant child when someone disagrees with him,” Christie told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Presidential hopeful and former vice president Mike Pence said it was “premature” to say whether he would grant Trump a pardon if convicted. Penny he said on Wednesday he couldn’t resist criminal charges against Trump, but added on Sunday that he did not know why many Republicans assumed he would be found guilty.
“All we know is what the president was accused of in the impeachment,” Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “It’s sad to me that we’re at this point now.”
Pence questioned Trump’s commitment to conservative principles, saying he was “departing” from his stance on abortion and that his stance on the national debt was “identical” to the president’s. Joe Biden.
He added that he hoped Trump would “come around” and accept the results of the 2020 election, which Trump has repeatedly claimed were stolen.
“No one who puts himself above the Constitution should ever be president of the United States,” Pence said.
Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas who is also a presidential hopeful, said he doubts Trump’s ability to pardon himself if he is re-elected.
“I doubt it. I don’t think that’s what the Constitution intended to give the president the power to pardon,” Hutchinson said on ABC’s “This Week,” later adding that while a self-pardon would be “inappropriate” and “indecent,” it’s “exactly what (Trump) would have intended if elected president.”
Hutchinson also said he would not accept the Republican National Committee’s commitment to support the eventual GOP presidential nominee as a condition of taking the debate stage.
“I will not support — any more than other voters will — any president who is indicted and potentially convicted at the time,” the Arkansas Republican said.
But Trump had a supporter Sunday in Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who said the former president should be pardoned if convicted. The biopharmaceutical entrepreneur has called for the abolition of institutions such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation for so-called “political views”.
The agency is a “pattern for corruption,” Ramaswamy said on “Fox News Sunday” for allegedly threatening Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights era or “going after political conservatives” like Trump.
“It’s about standing up for principles over politics,” he said.