BERLIN, N.H. − The man who served in the Oval Office with former President Donald Trump doesn’t think much of Trump’s reported intent to expand presidential power if he’s returned to the White House.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is running against Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination for president, said he has the opposite approach.
“I don’t want to consolidate power in Washington, D.C.,” Pence said Friday during a town hall in Berlin, N.H. “I want to devolve power out of Washington, D.C.”
A former governor of Indiana, Pence said he would reduce the size of the federal government, including shutting down the Department of Education and sending resources and authority to the states “where it can be accountable.”
“I believe in state-based federalism and reform,” he said near the end of a three-day campaign swing through New Hampshire.
Pence was responding to a recent New York Times report that Trump and his allies are planning a “sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government.”
“My former running mate wrote out a plan, well-intentioned I’m sure, about consolidating power in the executive branch,” Pence said.
He raised the report on his own, in response to a voter who complained that there’s too much corruption in Washington.
On the infrequent occasions when Pence criticizes Trump, he mostly focuses on what Trump might do if he becomes president again while praising what they accomplished during the Trump-Pence administration – a record he says he’ll be proud of “for the rest of my life.”
