Pence casts himself as Trump's foil as GOP's split on Ukraine widens

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s surprise visit to Ukraine Thursday highlighted a stark divide inside the GOP over American involvement in the country’s defense against Russia.

And it drew a sharp contrast between Pence and his old boss, former President Donald Donald Trump, who led their party in a more isolationist direction.

Pence, the first candidate in the crowded Republican 2024 presidential field to visit Ukraine, countered directly the rising “America First” wing of modern conservatism and sought to position himself as the party’s leading champion of the hawkish foreign policy that defined the party for decades.

“I truly do believe that now, more than ever, we need leaders in our country who will articulate the importance of American leadership in the world,” Pence told NBC News in Kyiv. “Ever since the days of Ronald Reagan, the American people have always stood with those who fought back to defend their own freedom.”

The visit came as many conservatives have called for cutting ties to Ukraine, which has received hundreds of billions of dollars from the Biden administration in aid and weapons. They argue the money would be better spent in the U.S., that the real fight for freedom is against progressivism at home, and that the struggle with Russia is a distraction from the more important one with China.

Trump, to whom Pence remained loyal until their falling out during the Jan. 6 insurrection, has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he would end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible — which would almost certainly require Ukraine to make major concessions — and refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win, even when repeatedly pressed on the question during a CNN town hall last month.

“Shockingly, almost the entire GOP field supports Biden’s strategy of blind support to Ukraine,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech entrepreneur who has become an unexpectedly strong presidential candidate, said in a memo posted to Twitter this month: “I disagree & predict this will become *the* key distinguishing issue in our primary.”

But Pence said his visit to Ukraine and meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy only “steeled my resolve” and “made me better equipped to be able to go home as I speak to the American people about the vital importance of American support to repel Russian aggression.”

The former vice president has emphasized Ukraine on the stump more than any other Republican candidate and plans to connect Ukraine’s current fight against Russia with the American war of Independence when he celebrates July 4 in Iowa next week, according to his campaign.

“There can be no room in the leadership of the Republican Party for apologists for Putin,” Pence said in a speech marking the anniversary of Russia’s invasion in February.

Liberal critics say Pence helped Trump put his stamp on the GOP, so his attempt to undo it now is too little too late.

But Peter Feaver, a former top National Security Council official in the George W. Bush White House and prominent conservative foreign policy expert, said the visit to a war zone by a major presidential candidate is a “galvanizing event” that could help Pence “jump out of the pack, at least on Ukraine,” for people in the party like him who want the GOP retain its traditional foreign policy values.

But he acknowledged that “the most animated portion of the base” appears to be with Trump.

A majority of Republican primary voters — 52% — said they would be less likely to back a candidate who supports sending more funding and weapons to Ukraine, according to the latest NBC News poll, while 28% said they would be more likely to support that candidate.

At first, support for Ukraine enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the U.S. But a year and a half into the war, Republicans are 30 percentage points more likely than Democrats to say Washington is providing too much support to Kyiv, according to Pew Research.

While Pence’s visit earned positive reviews from traditional conservative outlets like the National Review, others criticized him for making the trip, called him a “fraud” and a RINO — “Republican in name only” — and mocked Pence for happening to be in Kyiv at the same time as climate activist Greta Thunberg, a favorite villain of the right.

But for the most part, conservative media ignored the visit, reflecting Pence’s low standing in the polls and underscoring how difficult it will be for him to pull the party back to its foreign policy roots.

“I didn’t know there were any voters in the Republican primary in Kyiv,” conservative commentator and former judge Andrew Napolitano said on the streaming show Real America’s Voice. “He should spend his time in New Hampshire, where Donald Trump is beating him 51% to 5%.”

Still, Feaver, now a professor at Duke University, said Pence’s emphasis on Ukraine may force the other candidates to address an issue they might otherwise prefer to avoid, since it splits their base.

“It’s not going to change Trump. Trump is immovable on that topic. But it puts a lot of pressure on DeSantis to better define himself,” said Feaver. “DeSantis launched into Ukraine with that response to Tucker Carlson that was really poorly framed, then walked it back, and has sent conflicting messages since then.”

DeSantis faced criticism in March when he told the former Fox News host that the “territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” was not a key American interest. He quickly backtracked by calling Putin a “war criminal” and saying Ukraine has a right to the territory occupied by Russia.

Meanwhile, the rest of the candidate field — including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — say they support continued aid to Ukraine, though none have emphasized the issue as much as Pence.

Foreign policy is rarely a central issue in presidential elections, let alone partisan primaries, but depending on which faction prevails and who makes it to the White House will set the tone for the Republican Party and potentially U.S. policy.

“I don’t think it’s decisive in the primary. But I think it is decisive in the governing,” said Feaver. Whoever is president is going to be saddled with the baggage they are accumulating in the primary.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com