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Mike Pence and the Jews: What to know as he begins a presidential campaign
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Until the Jan. 6 insurrection, Mike Pence made sure to stay on the same page as Donald Trump — except, sometimes, when it came to the Jews.
Both men delighted the pro-Israel establishment — Trump by fulfilling a long wishlist of Israel’s right-wing government, Pence by proving himself as a stalwart Christian Zionist through years in elected office. But just weeks after Trump assumed office, the difference in how each man approached Jewish anxieties was already stark.
Jewish community centers and other Jewish institutions were getting bomb threats, and a Jewish journalist asked the president what he planned to do about antisemitism. Trump lashed out, accusing the reporter of lying and quipping, “Welcome to the world of the media.”
A week later, Jews in St. Louis were reeling after a vandal knocked over over 150 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery. Pence was in town and took the opportunity to condemn the bomb threats and the vandalism as “a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” Then, he headed over to the cemetery, picked up a rake and helped clean up the mess.
Pence’s bid is the longest of shots. He polls in the low single digits, while Trump leads in the polls. The former president routinely depicts Pence as a traitor for not trying to hand him the election when Pence presided over the certification of the electoral vote on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence, meanwhile, has said Trump’s behavior that day endangered his family. If Pence does succeed in unseating his old boss, it will be because he’s tapped into a deep thirst among some Republicans for a more conventional candidate to wean the party off Trump.
No matter how he does in the race, here’s what you need to know about Mike Pence and the Jews.
He has been pro-Israel from the get-go
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as an Indiana Republican in 2000, Pence made clear from the outset that defending Israel was among his priorities.
“My support for Israel stems largely from my personal faith,” he told Congressional Quarterly in 2002. “God promises Abraham, ‘those who bless you, I will bless, and those who curse you, I will curse.’”
In his autobiography published last year, “So Help me God,” he credits his interest in Israel and in Jewish issues to his late sister-in-law, Judy, “an elegant, sophisticated young woman from a prominent Jewish family in Milwaukee” who married his brother, Thomas, “a pickup-driving, dirt bike-riding, banjo-playing country boy from southern Indiana.” Pence wrote, “She made him a better man.”
For years, he has placed a quote from the Biblical book of Jeremiah above the fireplace in his personal and then his official residences — in the governor’s mansion in Indiana and then in the vice president’s residence in Washington, D.C: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope, and a future.”
“They’re words to which my family has repaired to as generations of Americans have done so throughout our history, and the people of Israel through all their storied history have clung,” Pence told a conference of Christians United for Israel in 2017.
In Congress, Pence took the lead in advancing pro-Israel legislation, especially in defending the barrier Israel built cutting through portions of the West Bank to shield Israel and some of its settlements from terrorist attacks. Together with Rep. Ron Klein, a Florida Democrat, and the late Tom Lantos, a California Democrat who was the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, he co-founded the House’s antisemitism task force.
Lantos, Pence said in his autobiography, had a profound influence on him. “He and I almost always disagreed on politics, but I was always inspired by his moral clarity and courage,” he wrote. Klein now chairs the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
As Indiana governor in 2016, Pence enacted the first state law banning state business with firms that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel, known as BDS. The bill also applied to businesses that boycott Israel’s settlements — one of the first pieces of legislation to erase the line between Israel and the West Bank.
Later that year, the Republican Jewish Coalition effusively praised Pence’s selection as Trump’s running mate, calling him “a critical leader and important voice regarding Israel during his time in the House and as governor.”
He attended every policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee during the Trump administration; Trump avoided all of them.
His evangelical beliefs shape his domestic policy
One of the most prominent issues of the 2024 election will be abortion, following the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade last year. The decision gave states the authority to determine reproductive rights and led to the swift narrowing of abortion access in many states. On abortion and other issues including LGBTQ rights, Pence departs from most of the Jewish community, where support for abortion access and LGBTQ issues are high.
A number of Republicans — chief among them Trump — believe that the party should take the win and not pursue further abortion restrictions, arguing that the decision last year contributed to Republican losses in the midterm elections.
Not Pence: he wants to ban abortion nationwide. “Having been given this second chance for life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land,” he said after the court’s decision.
Pence also has a long career of opposing LGBTQ rights. When he was governor, he sought to exempt Indiana from a Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriages. As a congressman, he opposed funding for outreach to HIV patients that he said promoted gay lifestyles. (His handling of an HIV outbreak in Indiana is understood to have worsened it.)
As Indiana governor in 2015, Pence signed one of the most far-reaching state laws allowing businesses to decline to serve LGBTQ customers. Businesses threatened to boycott the state, and he soon signed modified legislation that increased protections for LGBTQ people.
Months later, Pence was facing questions about why he pushed through the law from the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group that trends moderate on social issues and whose director said members had “a lot of questions” about the legislation. His tone was apologetic. “Ultimately we adopted a few reforms and made it clear this was a shield, not a sword,” he said of the bill.
He was the Trump administration’s top trauma whisperer for the Jews
During his time as vice president, Pence was often the favored spokesman when tragedy befell the Jews.
In 2018, at a Trump administration religious freedom event, Pence singled out the threats of violence faced by Jews in Europe, including in countries seen as allies by Trump.
“While religious freedom is always in danger in authoritarian regimes, threats to religious minorities are not confined to autocracies or dictatorships,” he said “They can, and do, arise in free societies, as well — not from government persecution but from prejudice and hatred.”
The same year, he said he was “sickened and appalled” at Nazi graffiti on an Indiana synagogue he knew well.
In 2019, he and his wife visited the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, after a deadly attack by a white supremacist. “We had to come,” he told the rabbi.
The same year, he toured Auschwitz and the next year, he attended the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
Some efforts to mark Jewish tragedy went awry. In 2018, when Pence marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish figures chided him for imbuing Christian imagery in his celebration of Israel’s founding in the wake of the Holocaust. “A few days ago, Karen & I paid our respects at Yad Vashem to honor the 6 million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust who 3 years after walking beneath the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to resurrect themselves to reclaim a Jewish future,” he said on Twitter.
It was not the last time a Pence event would bring Christian themes into Jewish mourning. Pence was scheduled on Oct. 29, 2018, to campaign in Michigan for a Jewish Republican running for Congress, Leah Epstein.
Two days earlier, a gunman massacred 11 Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the worst-ever attack on Jews in U.S. history. Epstein invited a Messianic Jewish leader to deliver a prayer. Messianic Jews, who call their spiritual leaders rabbis, believe in the divinity of Jesus, and Jewish groups took offense. That led Pence’s folks to scramble to tell reporters that he was unaware that the rabbi was not, in fact, Jewish.
Pence was not among the many Trump administration figures and supporters who urged the president to walk back his “very fine people on both sides” equivocation after a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 in which a counter-protester was killed. The vice president defended his boss: “I stand with the president,” he said when asked about Trump’s statements.
Trump-Pence vs. Trump
Pence, increasingly at odds with his former boss since their Jan. 6, 2021, falling-out, has a unique way of distinguishing Good Trump from Bad Trump: He portrays the administration’s wins as “Trump-Pence” policies, while the not-so-salutary stuff is Trump’s alone.
That dynamic was in evidence last November at the annual conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, when Pence was among an array of presidential prospective candidates to speak, including DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Trump himself.
Moving the embassy to Jerusalem? “Trump-Pence.” “It was the Trump-Pence administration that kept our word to the American people and our most cherished ally, when we moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the state of Israel,” Pence said.
As for Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election? Pence didn’t directly name the former president, but differentiated himself from him.
“The American people must know that our party keeps our oath to the Constitution even when political expediency may suggest that we do otherwise,” Pence said then. “We must be the leaders to keep our oath even when it hurts.”
Will he get Jewish funding?
Until filing papers on Monday, Pence’s main vehicle for fundraising has been a 501(c)4, a political advocacy group that is not required to reveal donors or extensive financial information. Advancing American Freedom has said its aim is to raise tens of millions of dollars to promote Pence’s favored conservative causes.
Now that he’s in the race, it will be interesting to watch where Pence draws Jewish support. One clue may be in a plane ride: Last year, Pence went on a campaign style tour of Israel and Ukraine. Loaning him the plane was Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate and Republican kingmaker Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson has since said she’s not planning to get involved in the GOP primaries.
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Condemnation and Applause in Latin America after US Seizes Venezuela’s Maduro
Venezuelans gather to celebrate, after US President Donald Trump said that the US attacked Venezuela and deposed its President Nicolas Maduro, in Santiago, Chile January 3, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza
Latin American leaders were divided between condemnation and jubilation in the wake of a surprise attack on Venezuela early on Saturday that US President Donald Trump said resulted in the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
While much of the region has long been wary of a return to US interventions throughout the 20th century that helped install authoritarian governments from Chile to Honduras, Maduro – who presided over his country’s social and economic collapse – was an increasingly unpopular and isolated leader.
Many Latin American countries have also experienced a shift in recent elections to more right-leaning governments, many of whose leaders view the US-backed military regimes of the last century as necessary bulwarks against socialism.
In a sign of the economic pain faced under Maduro, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2018, with 85 percent of them migrating to neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
Many countries in the region have experienced surges in organized crime in recent years and the specter of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang has loomed large over voters’ minds, leading to a rise in politicians vowing to crack down on crime and immigration.
While few leaders will shed serious tears about Maduro’s ousting, governments in the region will react along political lines, said Steven Levitsky, a professor and director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
“I think you’ll see right-wing governments applaud because that’s what they do. You’ll see left-wing governments criticize because how could they not?” Levitsky said.
REACTIONS SPLIT ALONG IDEOLOGY
The strongest condemnation of the attack came in a string of posts on X from neighboring Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, a leftist who has frequently clashed with Trump and has also been threatened by the US president.
“The Colombian government rejects the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America,” Petro said in one message, while calling for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council, of which Colombia is a member.
His Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, echoed Petro’s comments.
“The bombings on Venezuela’s territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line,” Lula said in a statement.
Chile’s outgoing President Gabriel Boric condemned the attack but President-elect Jose Antonio Kast, who rose to power by promising to crack down on migration and crime, said in a post on X that Maduro’s arrest was great news for the region.
“Now begins a greater task. The governments of Latin America must ensure that the entire apparatus of the regime abandons power and is held accountable,” said Kast, who will be sworn in on March 11.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum also condemned the US intervention in Venezuela. Asked about comments Trump made on Saturday to Fox News, when he said the US has offered to “take out the cartels” in Mexico and that “we have to do something,” Sheinbaum replied that Mexico has a very good relationship with the US on security matters.
ARGENTINA, ECUADOR BACK ACTION
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, Trump’s closest ally in the region, has long criticized Maduro and posted videos and statements on X in favor of the attack.
In Ecuador, right-wing President Daniel Noboa said Venezuelans opposed to Maduro and his political godfather Hugo Chavez have an ally in Ecuador.
“All the criminal narco-Chavistas will have their moment,” Noboa said on X. “Their structure will finally collapse across the continent.”
Protests both in favor and against the strikes in Venezuela have been scheduled in Buenos Aires and other cities across the region.
The capture of Maduro by US forces “is one of the most momentous decisions in the history of US-Latin America relations,” said Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and vice president of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas.
“The operation confirms return of Washington as policeman in its ‘sphere of influence,’ an idea that defined much of 19th and 20th centuries but had faded since (the) end of the Cold War,” Winter said in a post on LinkedIn.
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Democratic US Lawmakers Say They Were Misled on Venezuela, Demand a Plan
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) holds a press conference in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 23, 2024. Photo: Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Democratic members of the US Congress said on Saturday that senior officials of President Donald Trump‘s administration had misled them during recent briefings about plans for Venezuela by insisting they were not planning regime change in Caracas.
The US attacked Venezuela and deposed its long-serving President Nicolas Maduro in an overnight operation, in Washington’s most direct intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, said he had been told in three classified briefings that the administration was not pursuing regime change or planning to take military action in Venezuela.
“They assured me that they were not pursuing those things,” Schumer said on a call with reporters. “Clearly they’re not being straight with the American people.”
Schumer said he had not been briefed by Saturday afternoon and called for the administration to fill in not just congressional and intelligence committee leaders, but also all lawmakers by early next week.
“They’ve kept everyone in the total dark,” he said.
Lawmakers said they wanted more guidance on Trump‘s plans for Venezuela, after he told reporters he would put the country under US control, for now.
“No serious plan has been presented for how such an extraordinary undertaking would work or what it will cost the American people. History offers no shortage of warnings about the costs – human, strategic, and moral – of assuming we can govern another nation by force,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Senate is due to vote next week on whether to block further military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.
In briefings in November and December by officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, lawmakers said they were told repeatedly that there were no plans for a land invasion inside Venezuela and that the administration was not focused on regime change.
“Instead, the Administration consistently misled the American people and their elected representatives,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
The Pentagon, State Department and White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SOME LAWMAKERS SAY ADMINISTRATION LIED
Several lawmakers said they felt they had been lied to.
“The Administration lied to Congress and launched an illegal war for regime change and oil,” Democratic Representative Don Beyer of Virginia said on X. Beyer’s district includes the Pentagon, just across the river from Washington.
At a news conference on Saturday, Trump said Congress had not been kept fully informed because of concerns that word about his plans would get out. “Congress does have a tendency to leak,” Trump told reporters.
Members of Congress, including some of Trump‘s fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, had been clamoring for more information about his strategy toward the oil-rich South American nation since September, when he began a military build-up in the Caribbean and ordered strikes on boats he said were carrying drugs.
“When we had briefings on Venezuela, we asked, ‘Are you going to invade the country?’ We were told no. ‘Do you plan to put troops on the ground?’ We were told no. ‘Do you intend regime change in Venezuela?’ We were told no,” Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said on CNN. “So in a sense, we have been briefed, we’ve just been completely lied to.”
Lawmakers said they were not briefed before the operation, although Rubio called some members of Congress after it took place. There were no briefings for lawmakers scheduled by Saturday afternoon. Republican congressional leaders said they hoped to arrange some after lawmakers return to Washington on January 5 following their year-end recess.
Most Republicans praised Trump‘s action and have declined to discuss what has been said in classified briefings.
“President Trump‘s decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States,” said Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota.
Members of Congress have long accused presidents from both parties of seeking to sidestep the Constitution’s requirement that Congress, not the president, approve anything other than brief and limited military action needed to defend the United States.
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Israeli Leadership Hails Trump for ‘Brave, Brilliant’ Venezuela Operation
Photo of Maduro in U.S. custody shared by Trump. Photo: i24 illustration.
i24 News – Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister issued high praise to US President Donald Trump following the successful operation on Saturday to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
“Israel commends the United States’ operation, led by President Trump, which acted as the leader of the free world,” Gideon Sa’ar, the Jewish state’s top diplomat, wrote on social media. “At this historic moment, Israel stands alongside the freedom-loving Venezuelan people, who have suffered under Maduro’s illegal tyranny.”
“Israel welcomes the removal of the dictator who led a network of drugs and terror and hopes for the return of democracy to the country and for friendly relations between the states,” he further added.
The statement came hours after Maduro and his wife were seized in an overnight operation.
“This was one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, hailed Trump’s “bold and historic leadership on behalf of freedom and justice.”
“I salute your decisive resolve and the brilliant action of your brave soldiers,” the premier added.