Former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser said he would support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential matchup against his former boss, describing a frustrating breach between the teams that played in doubleheaders on Tuesday in an interview with the Washington Examiner. Washington.
Retired Gen. Keith Kellogg said that while he occasionally talks to Mike Pence, his loyalties lie with Trump. Speculation over Pence’s presidential ambitions has been rife as the former vice president tries to choose a post-Trump political path. At a gathering of young conservatives in downtown Washington Tuesday morning, Pence spoke hours before Trump made his own comments.
But despite Kellogg’s ties to Mike Pence, the top security adviser said he is committed to supporting the former president if he chooses to enter the race.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to pick a lane,” Kellogg told the Washington Examiner in an interview Tuesday. “I’ve always been a Trump guy.”
Trump is predicting a possible announcement before the 2022 midterm elections, raising the possibility of a wide range of Republican presidential candidates facing each other in 2024.
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The former president spoke in downtown Washington, D.C., on Tuesday at the America First Policy Institute conference, organized by the think tank where Kellogg is a top adviser. Trump’s appearance will be Trump’s first return to the capital since leaving office and follows testimony from a top Mike Pence adviser to a grand jury on Jan. 6.
The differences between the Trump and Pence camps came under new scrutiny in the wake of the Jan. 6 hearings.
Earlier Tuesday, Pence addressed a room of young conservatives across town, urging the group to look to the future.
“To win, conservatives must do more than criticize and complain,” Pence said in prepared remarks. “We must unite our movement behind a bold, optimistic agenda that offers the American people a clear and compelling choice.”
Further fueling speculation about Mike Pence’s political ambitions is his upcoming memoir, which will be published days after the Nov. 15 midterm elections.
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According to a statement from publisher Simon and Schuster on Tuesday, the book describes “Trump’s severance of their relationship.”
Kellogg said the differences between the two leaders were disappointing, but they didn’t have to be.
“We tried to bring him in tight,” Kellogg said of Pence. “It’s not because we didn’t reach him.”
He suggested that those around Pence instigated the conflict.
Mike Pence’s advisers, “like Mark Short,” Kellogg said, “pulled away from the Trump team.”
Trump banned Short from the White House on Jan. 6 for advising Pence on certifying the 2020 election results, prompting the president to challenge his vice president.
A senior adviser to Mike Pence, Short was with the vice president at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has played a central role in the congressional investigation.
However, Kellogg, who said he spoke with Trump about two weeks ago, was unable to say what the former president’s final decision was about running for a third term in the White House.
“If I put money on the table in Las Vegas on whether he’s going to run or not, I think he’s going to run,” Kellogg said, “but I don’t know.”