Tangle - Mike Pence drops out of presidential race.

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Mike Pence. On Saturday, Mike Pence announced the end of his 2024 presidential campaign during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. The announcement drew audible gasps from the crowd, which had gathered to hear a campaign speech, and was followed by a standing ovation.You can read today's podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. You can also check out our latest YouTube video, an interview with Rep. Dean Phillips and his bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination here, and a sizzle reel of our first ever Tangle Live event from August 2023, here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (0:56), Today’s story (2:44), Left’s take (5:34), Right’s take (9:12), Isaac’s take (12:34), Listener question (16:14), Under the Radar (19:18), Numbers (20:11), Have a nice day (21:10)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the poll. Who do you support in the Republican field, now that Pence has dropped out? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Mike Pence. The former vice president has officially dropped out of the 2024 campaign to be the Republican nominee for president. We're going to talk about what happened and what to make of it.

Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll get started with some quick hits. First up, United Auto Workers reached a deal with General Motors, ending the strike against Detroit automakers. Number two, Israel continued its advance into the Gaza Strip on Monday, freeing an Israeli female soldier held hostage and rejecting calls for a ceasefire. Israeli forces also carried out a raid in the West Bank. Number three, police in Maine were alerted of a U.S. Army reservist who made threats against his base before the mass shooting that killed 18 people. Number four, a trial begins today in Colorado where six voters are arguing that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to hold office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. And number five, Representative

Earl Blumenauer, the Democrat from Oregon, announced that he will retire after spending almost three decades in Congress. The 2024 Republican presidential field got a little smaller over the weekend. The 2024 Republican presidential field got a little smaller over the weekend. Eight candidates now remain in the primary race after former Vice President Mike Pence dropped out Saturday. Pence is the first major candidate to leave the race, which continues to be dominated by his former boss, Donald Trump. This comes after his campaign for the White House struggled to raise money or gain traction in the polls, Pence made the announcement at the annual gathering of the Republican-Jewish coalition. I came here to say it's become clear to me, this is not my time.

So after much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today. On Saturday, Mike Pence announced the end of his 2024 campaign during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. The announcement drew audible gas from the crowd who were attending to hear a campaign speech followed by a standing ovation. We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets, Pence said. To the American people, I say, this is not my time, but it's still your time. I urge you to hold fast to what matters most, faith, family, and the Constitution of the United States of America. Pence's candidacy offered a throwback to previous Republican presidential candidates who have

emphasized traditional conservative social values along with an aggressively postured foreign policy. He also offered a unique perspective on the presidency of Donald Trump, expressing both pride in what the two accomplished together and disdain for Trump's behavior after the 2020 election loss to President Biden. All the while, he repeatedly emphasized that he stood strong against Trump, upholding his oath of office while rejecting efforts to overturn the election. Throughout his campaign, Pence struggled to move upward in the polls or raise the kind of money required to take on his opponents. At the time of his announcement, he had not yet qualified for the third Republican presidential debate on November 8th in Miami, which helped force his decision to

drop out. In his parting speech, he did not declare support for any other candidate, nor did he promise to endorse the eventual nominee. The Biden campaign responded to the news by excoriating Pence. Since he left office, Mike Pence campaigned for election deniers, led the charge for a nationwide abortion ban, and repeatedly called for slashing Social Security and Medicare, a member of their rapid response team said. Not an inch of daylight between the two of them, despite the endless spin from Pence world. In the first two Republican debates, Pence tangled frequently with GOP newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy and received praise from former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who said Pence deserved credit for resisting Trump's pressure not to certify the election results. Pence becomes the highest-profile Republican

to leave the race since the primaries began. Lesser-known candidates like Representative Will Hurd, the Republican from Texas, Larry Elder, and Perry Johnson have also suspended their campaigns, while former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson had his campaign manager resign and is expected to bow out soon. So far, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie have said they've qualified for the third debate. Today, we're going to take a look at some reactions to Pence's decision to drop out from the left and the right, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left is unsurprised by Pence's exit

and thinks this outcome was a foregone conclusion. Some think his previous fealty to Trump made his campaign's denunciations of the former president confusing and unconvincing. Others say the end of his candidacy is unlikely to change the dynamics of the Republican primary. In CNN, Stephen Collinson wrote that Pence joins Republicans eviscerated by contradicting Trump's election lies. Pence now joins the swelling ranks of Republicans from former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney to retiring Utah Senator Mitt Romney, whose careers were eviscerated by contradicting Trump's lies. Those lies, namely that he was unfairly and illegally ejected from the White House, are now the foundation of Trump's 2024 campaign to win it back, Collinson said. But the failure of Pence's campaign says as much about a brand of republicanism that may be gone forever as it does his own political skills. The former vice president's campaign was a bid

to drag the GOP back to its pre-Trump era. He offered social conservatism, traditional hardline fiscal policies, and internationalism through strength in foreign policy that contrasted with his former boss's fawning toward autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin. But his failure to even reach the Iowa caucuses, the first GOP-nominating contest in January, shows that a party still in thrall with Trump is unwilling to hear the truth about the 2020 election and may have turned against Ronald Reagan-style republicanism for good. In the New York Times, Adam Nagourney said Pence's decision to align himself with Trump in 2016 may have cost him a political future. After more than a decade in Congress, one term as governor and another as vice president, Mr. Pence is 64 and, by every appearance entering the bleakest

period of his public life since being elected to Congress from the 2nd District of Indiana in 2001, Nagorny said. His decision to break with Mr. Trump after the January 6th incursion at the Capitol and his challenge to his former boss for the nomination in 2024 angered the former president and alienated the Trump supporters who defined the party. But Mr. Pence's four years of loyalty to Mr. Trump while he was vice president ultimately made it impossible for him to win over voters eager to turn the page on the Trump presidency, Nogorny said. Mr. Pence's short-lived campaign stands as testimony to the unexpected consequences of that decision. For all the kind words said about him by his opponents after he dropped out, his own future is now uncertain. In ABC News, Nathaniel Rakich argued it doesn't matter that

Mike Pence dropped out of the GOP primary. If you're expecting this to be the event that finally shakes up the Republican primary, think again. Pence's withdrawal isn't likely to give a meaningful boost to any of his fellow anti-Trump candidates, Rakic said. Normally, vice presidents make for strong presidential contenders. Before Pence, six of the last seven former vice presidents who ran for president successfully captured their party's nomination. Pence's main problem was that he had no base within the GOP. Pence's support will flow relatively uniformly to all the other top-tier candidates, will flow relatively uniformly to all the other top-tier candidates, which would not help, say,

Haley strengthen her argument that she is the candidate best positioned to defeat Trump, Rakich added. But even if Pence's support flows overwhelmingly to one alternative candidate, that wouldn't significantly alter the trajectory of the race. Remember, Pence was polling at just 4% nationwide. At best, that would take Haley from 8 percent to 12 percent. Not nothing, but still leagues behind Trump, who sits at 57 percent. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right commends Pence for dropping out of the race quickly when it became clear he couldn't win. Some say his campaign was pointless from the beginning. Others say this is another blow to Reaganism. National Review's editors said Pence was doomed by doing his constitutional duty on January 6th. Pence can take comfort knowing that his faithfulness to the Constitution will be long

remembered, and if he had bowed to Trump's pressure, the president's campaign to overturn the election results would have become a genuine constitutional crisis, the editor said. A realist might have predicted that Pence's partnership with Trump would end badly. Politicians don't usually turn down an opportunity to be on a national ticket, though, and Pence surely figured he could be a positive influence on any Trump administration while perhaps inheriting the mantle at some point. Pence's hand was forced by his difficulty qualifying for the third debate, but there was never really any doubt that if he concluded his campaign couldn't win, he'd get out rather than take any of the vote share from other non-Trump alternatives. Other candidates should

prayerfully consider his example. At the end of the day, the political weather didn't favor the former vice president's candidacy. That says more about the weather than about Mike Pence. In the Washington Examiner, Christopher Tremogli questioned Pence's inane presidential campaign. Pence's campaign immensely struggled to gain any traction since it started, and it was always viewed as destined to fail. At the time he decided to suspend his campaign, Pence was polling nationally at 3.5 percent. He was evenly behind Vivek Ramaswamy, a person who never held political office, he wrote. It raises the question, why did Pence even bother to run in the first place? Pence was not a particularly memorable vice president, with the possible exception of his last two weeks in office. Overall, Democrats disliked him and radicals on the left despised

him because of his faith and religious beliefs. He was never going to get support from at least half the nation's voters anyway, Tramagli said. For a political position that requires charisma, Pence has repeatedly shown he doesn't appear to have any. That, combined with most of the voters in the country not having a favorable opinion of him, made his decision to run seemingly pointless. In the dispatch, Andrew Egger and David M. Drucker called Pence dropping out another blow to Reaganism. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown.

When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Pence was always going to be persona non grata to Trump's loyal voting base. only on Disney+. Meanwhile, for Republican voters wishing to move on from Trump, Pence seemed equally unacceptable, a product of his unfailing fidelity to the former president through myriad scandals up until that moment on January 6, 2021. congeniality and principled ideology of a politician who, for years, was fond of saying that he was conservative but not angry about it. Rather, Republicans have gravitated toward combative populist culture warriors like Trump and others who better demonstrate their ability to deliver on GOP voters' number one priority, to fight. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So this is about the one millionth data point we have that the party belongs to Donald Trump now.

And the Mike Pence's of the GOP establishment are truly done. Pence never had a shot, and nothing about his decision should be surprising. In 2016, he functioned as a way to calm the nerves of Christian conservatives in the Republican establishment who feared and loathed Trump almost as much as Democrats did. Pence helped Trump win over evangelicals, who appear to now care far more about Trump's record than they do about Pence's faith. Republican voters now even believe Trump is more religious than Pence, one of the most faith-based politicians to ever hold office. He helped shape Trump's image and insulate him where he was probably most vulnerable, and the candidate he helped create now seems practically invincible. The reality here is

that the faction of the GOP who wants to move on from Trump still seems to be grappling with a massive error they made at the beginning of this primary. The Trump opposition basically falls into a few camps. Those who always despised him, those who supported him but abandoned him, and those who still support him but don't think he can win in 2024 after his handling of COVID-19, his role in January 6th, and his many indictments. If those factions had coalesced around one or two candidates, they could have had a shot to unseat Trump in the primary and get a different Republican to the general. Instead, they did exactly what was most beneficial to Trump. They threw a dozen candidates into the ring and are letting them all fight over the same bone while Trump sits back and

watches. Kudos to Mike Pence for dropping out. To his credit, he realized he had no chance and no support. We could even see his struggle to generate momentum in our surveys. On June 8th, Mike Pence had the support of roughly 10% of Tangle readers in the Republican primary. On August 24th, only 2% of Tangle readers considered him the winner of the Republican debate. Then on September 28th, following the second debate, only one of the 411 respondents declared him the winner. Now, he can exit stage left and continue to bask in his defining political moment, which was refusing to comply with Trump's pressure to disrupt the 2020 election certification. Pence's defining political views are his strong social conservatism, his

desire for American military intervention all across the globe, and his hope to make massive spending cuts to social programs to balance the budget. In today's political alignment, you can have one or two of those things and still rise in the Republican Party, and even more broadly across the U.S., but you can't have all three. Pence's failure to get traction in the Republican primary should be the final nail in the coffin for anyone who believes this particular breed of conservative can become president. Meanwhile, the Iowa caucuses are January 15th, just two and a half months away, and we've still got Haley, Christie, Ramaswamy, Scott, DeSantis, Hutchinson, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum all in the race. As surreal as it might be, the reality here is exactly the same as it was when I said this a

few months ago. Trumping the nominee is a foregone conclusion. These other candidates are essentially waiting around to see if something so big happens, like he actually gets convicted of a crime and has to serve jail time or agrees not to run as part of some settlement, that they might catapult to the top. But if Republican voters get to punch Trump's name on the ballot in the primary, he is going to win in a landslide. Nobody has ever blown the polling lead he has, and his numbers seem to get better every week. The Republican establishment and Republican voters had plenty of opportunities to coalesce around a real successor, but they didn't take any of them, and it sure as heck was never going to be Mike Pence.

take any of them, and it sure as heck was never going to be Mike Pence. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Ted in Billings, Montana. Ted said, what's the typical day like for Tangle? So I've answered this question once or twice in the last four years, and it is rewarding to actually look back and think about how the answer has changed. I used to work Tangle around my full-time job. So I would start researching topics after the workday and put together a reader question and have a nice day in the evening and the day before. And then the next day I'd wake up at 5am, read a bunch of news stories, put together the introduction, copy samples of different summaries, write my take, and rush through a reader question all before I started work in the morning. Then a couple of my friends would help proofread it before I sent it out at noon.

That process was exhausting, and when I went full-time with Tangle, I basically filled all of the free time up by adding different kinds of content in the newsletter and managing reader responses. Fortunately, we've grown enough that I've built a team to help with all of that. Today, I started the morning by walking to my own office. The next day's newsletter usually starts before the last one goes out, so some of this newsletter was already done. We discuss what's in the news and which stories could be good fits for Tangle, then check out which ones are generating the most conversation in editorial pages. When one member of our team puts together the research for the summaries of what the left and the right are saying, another prepares to have a nice day story

or the research for the reader question. That frees me up to do a ton of stuff in the afternoon. Sometimes that means coordinating with our marketing team and social media manager to see how Tangle's brand is doing or discussing how to reach new audiences. Other times it means recording an interview or a video or talking with our video editor to see which news stories would best fit for a new video or a YouTube channel. Then there are days where I do an interview or talk with our booking coordinator to see what's next or approve some adjusted content with our managing editor to run it on a different platform, or I'm meeting with other business owners, or I can just focus on writing a subscribers-only Friday edition. Sometimes I'm just spending the afternoon answering reader emails. Now that we've grown in size and raised our standards for quality,

there is a lot to do. The biggest rush for us, though though is always in the morning. I get to start my day by just reading and listening to as much as I can. The vast, vast majority of this job is research, reading, and talking to people. Then I write the summary for what the day's story is, my take, and an under the radar story. I collaborate with my team to make the numbers and the extra sections in the morning. And because of prep the day before, I get to finalize and drop in the left and right summaries and the reader question, and then have a nice day story, which frees me up to record this podcast and spend a lot more time fleshing out my own take. But if you ask me again in a year, I hope to have a little bit of a different answer.

We've got some more irons in the fire here, and we're always looking to add more to what we do before the end of the year. So stay tuned. All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. President Biden issued a far-reaching executive order on artificial intelligence that will require companies to report to the federal government about the risks their systems could aid countries or terrorists to make weapons of mass destruction. The order also hopes to reduce the number of deepfakes that could fool voters or consumers. I've watched one of me, Biden said about an artificially generated video of himself, his staff made to show him. I said, when the hell did I say that? It's the first

executive action designed to address artificial intelligence in the country, quickly becoming known for leading the technological revolution. The New York Times has the story. There's a link to it in today's episode description. And heads up, that story is behind a paywall. All right, next up is our numbers section. The number of candidates who filed to seek the Republican nomination for president to date is 270. The number of candidates excluding Pence who are polling above 1% is now six, according to Real Clear Politics polling average. The number of days Mike Pence's campaign lasted was 145. Pence's campaign debt as of October 15th was $600,000. Pence's polling average in the Republican primary on January 9th, 2023 was 9%. That was before he entered the race. His polling average when he entered the race on June 7th was 5.3%. His polling average when he dropped out this week was 3.8%.

Pence's net favorability among Republicans on January 5th, 2021 was 88%. And his net favorability among Republicans on January 10th, 2021 was 63%. All right. And last but not least there, have a nice day section. Marathoner Sarah Bohan was on track for a personal best of the Chicago Marathon when she made a mid-race decision that showed her sponsors, Paws Chicago, they'd back the right runner. Bohan stopped her run when she saw a tiny white face huddled under a pile of leaves. Ditching her PR attempt,

she picked up the one-pound kitten, gently nuzzling it as she could find someone in the crowd to look after it. That's when Bohan found mother of four, Andrea Maldonado. We were on the sidelines having fun and all of a sudden this girl came up to me with a kitten, Maldonado said. Our girls love him. Our family loves him. Our dog loves him. Bohan finished the marathon at three hours and 33 minutes this year and says next year she will go again for her personal record. Good News Network has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our

work, you can go to readtangle.com and consider becoming a member. And don't forget, we'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Also, before you get out of here, we've got a new YouTube video up. We talked about it yesterday. It's our interview with Dean Phillips on our channel. Be sure to go check it out if you're curious about the man challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Law. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady.

The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. For more on Tangle, please go to retangle.com and check out We'll see you next time. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.