Trump laughs at prospect of Pence face-off in 2024 run: ‘That wouldn’t be a problem’

Former president Donald Trump on Thursday appeared unconcerned about the prospect of facing his former Vice President, Mike Pence, in a 2024 presidential primary matchup.

Mr Pence has not declared that he will be a candidate for the presidency in 2024, but in a recent interview with The New York Times said he and his wife, Karen, would “go where we are called”. He has also previously said he would not be deterred from a 2024 campaign by the possibility that Mr Trump would enter that race as well.

But the twice-impeached ex-president laughed off the possibility of having to campaign against his once-loyal number two during an interview on Fox Business Network.

Asked about whether such an occurrence would split the Republican Party, Mr Trump replied: “That's okay if he ran. I mean, I wouldn't be concerned with that, that’s fine”.

Mr Pence, who served as Indiana’s governor before Mr Trump selected him as his running-mate in 2016, was one of the ex-president’s most loyal boosters throughout their four-year term, but broke with him in the days leading up to the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The then-president and many of his allies had spent days pushing Mr Pence to unilaterally reject electoral votes from swing states won by Mr Biden as part of a plan to install them in office for another four years against the wishes of American voters.

But Mr Pence declined to do so, and said in a letter to members of Congress released as he traveled to the Capitol that vesting his office with such authority would be “entirely antithetical” to the designs of the authors of the US Constitution.

“I do not believe that the Founders of our country intended to invest the Vice President with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the Joint Session Congress, and no Vice President in American history has ever asserted such authority,” he wrote.

Mr Trump added that he did not believe Mr Pence had actually said he would run even if the former president mounted a comeback bid and said Republicans “are very disappointed” in Mr Pence for refusing to help him overturn the 2020 election.