CNN: Phil Mattingly: 'Mike Pence Doesn’t Regret Comparing Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan. Here’s Why"

Source:CNN- former Vice President of the United States Mike Pence (Republican, Indiana) and 2020 presidential candidate, talking to CNN.

"CNN's Phil Mattingly sits down with former Vice President and current GOP presidential candidate Mike Pence to talk about what he calls former President Donald Trump's "road to ruin" for the GOP." 

From CNN

I guess I would respond to what Vice President Mike Pence told CNN this way, which is what Phil Mattingly also talked about.

Donald Trump wasn't a Conservative when he announced his presidential campaign in 2015 and didn't run as a Conservative for President in 2016. Pre-Barack Obama birtherism, Donald Trump was a New York City Democrat. Perhaps a Northeastern Republican. He wasn't very ideological at all. 

If there is anything that's ever been consistent about Donald Trump's politics is that he's an opportunist who reads political polls and moods very well. He got on board with the right-wing populists (whether you want to call them the Christian-Right, Tea Party, Christian Nationalists, or MAGA) in the Republican Party in 2011-12 and saw that as his opening to run for President someday himself as a registered Republican, but certainly not a Republican ideologically. 

Vice President Pence is not a Ronald Reagan Republican either. Ronald Reagan was always part of the Calvin Coolidge, Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen, classical conservative wing of the Republican Party. The wing of the Republican Party who believes it's the job of government to conserve American's individual rights and freedom, to defend the country, keep taxes, spending, regulations, deficits down. 

The Reagan Conservative wing is not:

"This is what it means to be a real American. And anyone who disagrees with us, is Un-American or immoral. And it's the job of government to enforce our religious values on everyone else." 

If you think about it, Mike Pence when he was in the U.S. House in the 2000s and as Governor of Indiana before he became Vice President in 2017, that's the kind of Republican Pence was. He probably had a 90% approval rating with the right-wing religious populists of the Republican Party, before he turned against Donald Trump in late 2020 and early 2021. 

I think the real difference between Mike Pence and Donald Trump's MAGA followers, is not very ideological, except perhaps when it comes to trade, national security, and foreign policy. But they share the same religious and cultural values. I think the real ideological difference between Vice President Pence and Donald Trump's followers, has to do with the U.S. Constitution, American democracy,  and rule of law. 

We have 2 1/2 years of evidence that backs up the fact that Mr. Pence believes in the rule of law and American democracy. At least enough, that he believes no one is above the law and is entitled to public office, especially after they just lost a free and fair election. Meaning you have to win elections to get into and stay in public office. Mr. Pence also believes no one is above the law. Donald Trump and his followers don't believe in those American values.

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