Former Vice President Mike Pence to Receive the Profile in Courage Award for Fulfilling His Constitutional Duty and Standing up to Trump’s Pressure to Overturn the Election Results

Former United States Vice President Michael Pence will receive the 2025 Profile in Courage Award. The former U.S. Representative and Governor of Indiana was Donald Trump’s recommended Republican vice presidential nominee in 2016. The GOP ticket was elected through massive election fraud, through deception, intimidation, illegal campaign finance activity and foreign interference, including by a hostile foreign power, Russia, which Trump and his campaign invited, welcomed and accepted. Once in office, the conservative Pence mostly was silent during Trump’s term, even though the Framers of the Constitution imagined the Vice President, whose only constitutional role is as President of the Senate, as a check on the President, not a sycophant. Pence seldom objected, even internally, while Trump engaged in dishonesty and corruption, was unable to put America’s interests above his own, violated the Constitution and implemented policies anathema to conservatism. After Trump was defeated for reelection in 2020, but was unable or unwilling to accept the results, he and his supporters pressured Pence as President of the Senate to reject the count of the Electors for Trump’s opponent, Democratic nominee Joseph Biden, on the false basis of election fraud claims that every Republican elections official and judge had rejected. Trump and his supporters demanded Pence exercise a role beyond presiding over the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 to count the votes and thus certify the results, but to impose his arbitrary judgment against the counting of valid ballots by Electors for Biden. Some Trumpists even threatened to kidnap or kill Pence and other congressional leaders. Inspired by Trump’s lies and inflammatory statements and aided by his refusal to send forces to restore order and allow the constitutional process to continue, they attacked the Capitol in an effort to thwart the counting of the ballots to keep Trump in power. Trump was later impeached for his incitement of insurrection in the most bipartisan impeachment by the House and votes of conviction by the Senate, but by that point his term had already ended and he was acquitted. Several hundred insurrectionists were charged with federal crimes and pleaded guilty or were convicted and sentenced, including to imprisonment on various charges from trespassing on federal property to theft, assault of law enforcement officers and even seditious conspiracy, but Trump commuted or pardoned them, as he still baselessly insists he won the election and that the convictions were partisan, etc. But Pence steadfastly resisted the pressure from Trump and threats from Trump’s violent supporters and remained steadfast to his constitutional duty by declining to reject unilaterally the Electoral College votes for Biden and presiding over the certification of the vote for the Democratic nominee and thus the defeat of Trump and himself for reelection. Thus, with two weeks remaining in their terms, the Vice President had finally and decisively exercised his constitutional check on Trump and thereby allowed the transfer of power and defended the republic from usurpation by an autocrat determined to remain in power by any means. Pence endured harsh criticism and threats by Trumpists for defending the integrity of the presidential election. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, running on a principled conservative platform and maintaining, as the other candidates agreed, except for Trump, that he had done the right thing in courageously resisting Trump’s pressure to abuse his power, but the Trumpified GOP nevertheless rejected him and other anti-Trump and non-Trumpist conservative candidates. Pence has since bravely continued to speak out in favor of conservative principles and against Trump’s non-conservative nominations and policies, both personally and through the conservative organization he founded, Advancing American Freedom. The prestigious Profiles in Courage Award is presented by the family of former President John F. Kennedy, inspired by the book the Democrat had authored, Profiles in Courage, about American political leaders who risked their political careers to resist political pressure and to do what was right for America.