GREENSBORO — Former President Donald Trump may have had the third spot in the speaking order, but his shadow hung over the 2023 North Carolina Republican Convention long before he stepped up to the podium.
On the day the convention opened, Trump was indicted on 37 federal charges for his handling of classified documents.
That put two of his biggest challengers in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination for president in a tough position. Both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spoke on Friday evening just hours after the indictment was announced, and Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke at a Saturday luncheon, had to position themselves as better alternatives to Trump while still offering a reaction to a legal maneuver that many Republicans likely saw as out of line from a Democratic administration. And both had to do it knowing that Trump would have the last word of the weekend on Saturday night.
The two men took markedly different tacks. DeSantis spent most of his 45-minute speech touting his accomplishments and vision, never mentioning Trump directly by name.
DeSantis set himself up as the candidate willing to stand up for what is right, even in the
face of heavy criticism. He cited his clashes with schools and the Disney corporation in Florida, wearing the criticism as a badge of honor.
“A leader, at the end of the day, can’t be concerned with short-term political calculations over doing what’s right,” he declared. “I have the responsibility to look out for the people I represent, and I had to care more about their jobs than saving my own political hide. …. Leadership is about doing what’s right when you have intense opposition. Sometimes you have to stand all alone. … It’s not entertainment. It’s not brand-building. It’s not virtue signaling.”
The only time DeSantis addressed Trump’s legal situation was in the final 10 minutes of his remarks after he promised to cut out federal bureaucracy. “The most significant issues facing our society,” he said, “those decisions are not being made by your elected representatives. They’re being implemented by nameless faceless bureaucrats that you will never have the opportunity to vote out of office.”
“What happens is, when there’s no constitutional accountability, our founding fathers would have absolutely predicted the weaponization we’ve seen with these government agents, particularly Justice and the FBI,” he said. “Because when you don’t have constitutional accountability, human nature is such that they will abuse power. And that’s what happened. When I was in Congress, I remember, Hillary (Clinton) had emails with the classified, and my view was, ‘Gee, as a naval officer, if I would have taken classified from my department, I would have been court marshaled in a New York minute,’ and yet they seem to not care about that. Is there a different standard for a Democratic secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think we should have one standard for everyone. We can’t have one faction of society weaponizing the state against other factions it doesn’t like.”
Pence, whose accomplishments are entwined with Trump’s, was more open in speaking of the former president, saying, “We gather here after a sad day for America: A former president, facing an unprecedented indictment by a Justice Department run by the current president and a potential political rival.”
Pence said he was “deeply troubled” by the indictment and promised as president to “end years of politicization at the Department of Justice and restore the confidence of the American people in equal treatment under the law.”
After throwing his support behind Trump in the current legal issue, Pence’s remarks reached an emotional crescendo as he discussed his break with the president during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
He pointed out that the oath he took to protect and defend the Constitution when he was inaugurated as vice president is the same one taken by members of the military, like his son.
“It gives me no pleasure to say it,” Pence said of Jan. 6, “but on that fateful day, the American people deserve to know — President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution, and I always will.
“Under our Constitution, the states conduct our elections and certify those elections,” he said. “Once they certify the election, Article 2, Section 1 reads, ‘The president of the Senate (the vice-president of the U.S.) shall, in a joint session of Congress, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.’ No more, no less.
“Despite the fact that the Constitution provides the vice president with no authority to reject or return the vote to the states, my former running mate insisted, and continues to insist, that I had the right to overturn the election,” he continued. “President Trump was wrong then, and he is wrong now. I had no right to overturn the election, and Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”
Pence said he has prayed for Trump regularly over the last two years and will continue to do so, but he stands by his decision to defy him.
“The Bible says, ‘He keeps his oath, even when it hurts,’ and I know something about that,” Pence said then paused for several seconds to collect himself. “I say from my heart, anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president.”
Bringing his remarks back to his son and other people in uniform, Pence said, “How can we ask our men and women in uniform to take that oath and risk their lives to defend the Constitution and not demand the same of those leaders who would send them into battle?”
