Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to supporters as he formally announces his intention to seek the Republican nomination for president on June 07, 2023 in Ankeny, Iowa.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Several Republican 2024 presidential hopefuls criticized Donald Trump on Sunday as the former president faced 37 federal counts for allegedly storing documents after he left the White House.
Trump lashed out at his critics — including members of his former staff — after his indictment, calling his former Attorney General Bill Barr a “No Power Pig” and his former chief of staff John Kelly was “weak” with a “Very little ‘brain.'”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who announced his bid for president earlier this month, said Trump’s comments suggested he was “the worst manager in the history of the American presidency.”
“He’s a petulant child when someone disagrees with him,” Christie told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Presidential hopeful and former Vice President Mike Pence said it is “premature” to say whether or not he will pardon Trump if he is convicted. Pence said Wednesday that he cannot defend the criminal charges against Trump, but added Sunday that he did not know why many Republicans thought he would be found guilty.
“All we know is what the president is accused of in the indictment,” Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “It’s sad for me that we’re in this moment.”
Pence questioned Trump’s commitment to conservative principles, saying he was “moving away” from his stance on abortion and that his position on the national debt was “similar” to President Joe Biden’s position.
He added that he hoped Trump would “go” to accept the results of the 2020 election, which Trump has repeatedly claimed was stolen.
“No one who puts himself on the Constitution should be president of the United States,” Pence said.
Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas who is also a presidential hopeful, said he doubts Trump’s ability to pardon himself if he is re-elected.
“I doubt it. I don’t think that’s what the Constitution intended in giving the president the pardon power,” Hutchinson said on ABC’s “This Week,” later adding that, even a self-pardon is “inappropriate ” and “unpleasant,” doing so is “exactly what (Trump) intends if he is elected president.”
Hutchinson also said he would not accept the Republican National Committee’s pledge to support the GOP’s presidential nominee as a condition of participating in the debate stage.
“I’m not going to support — just like other voters aren’t going to support — someone for president who’s under indictment who could potentially be convicted at that time,” the Arkansas Republican said.
But Trump had a supporter on Sunday in Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy who said the former president should be pardoned if convicted. The biopharma entrepreneur has called for the dismantling of institutions like the Federal Bureau of Investigation because of what he calls “political viewpoints.”
The agency is “a formula for corruption,” Ramaswamy said on “Fox News Sunday,” for allegedly threatening Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights era or “going after political conservatives” like Trump.
“It’s about standing up for political principles,” he said.