Pence says there are ‘better choices’ than Trump for 2024, calls to put entitlement cuts ‘on the table’

As he stayed mum on the prospect of a presidential bid, Pence delved into some of the thorniest policy questions facing the country. When asked about talks in Congress to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, and the prospect of reforming Medicare and Social Security, he said the U.S. should consider long-term changes to the popular but expensive programs.

Some House Republicans have targeted the programs as part of a potential deal to raise the U.S. borrowing limit, evoking sharp criticism from Democrats and prompting a protracted back-and-forth. Leaders of both parties are vowing not to touch the entitlements.

“I’m glad to see the Republican majority saying we need to use this debt ceiling to start us back in the direction of fiscal discipline, but look, we all know where the real issue is in terms of long-term debt,” Pence said.

“I respect the speaker’s commitment to take Social Security and Medicare off the table for the debt ceiling negotiations. We’ve got to put them on the table in the long term,” Pence said.

“We’re looking at a debt crisis in this country over the next 25 years that is driven by entitlements, and nobody in Washington, D.C., wants to talk about it,” he said.

Pressed on what reforms he would make, Pence said there were “lots of good ideas.” He referenced former President Ronald Reagan working to raise the retirement age, along with long-term personal savings accounts. But “the first job is to be straight, the second job is, get everybody at the table,” he said.

The Trump administration did not pursue entitlement reforms. Confronted with that fact, Pence argued that the Trump administration’s first objective was to “get the economy moving again” after a sluggish Obama-era recovery from the 2008 recession.

“Then history showed up in the form of Covid,” Pence said — though he added, “I don’t think we did nearly enough.”

Pence repeatedly said the country needed “leadership” at the presidential level, and said the 2022 midterm results showed that “elections are about the future.”

“I mean, our candidates who were focused on the issues affecting Americans today, and solutions for the future, did very well,” Pence said. But “our candidates that were focused on the past, particularly on relitigating the last election, did not do well, including in areas that we should have done very well.”

Trump never conceded the 2020 election to Biden, and has spent the years since his loss falsely claiming that the race was tainted by widespread election fraud. Many of Trump’s handpicked midterms candidates, who echoed those false claims or otherwise cast doubt on the 2020 outcome, lost in high-profile races.

“I don’t think anybody could have defeated Hillary Clinton other than Donald Trump in 2016,” Pence told CNBC.

But now, he said, “I honestly hear people talking to me very regularly about wanting to get back to the policies, but wanting to return to the kind of politics that makes it possible for us to take on some of these long-term, intractable problems.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/22/mike-pence-prefers-alternative-to-donald-trump-in-2024-presidential-election.html