BOSTON, Oct. 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Vice President Mike Pence today told an audience at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate that while he had “no qualms” about President Trump pardoning Jan. 6 defendants who did not commit acts of violence, he disagreed with pardons for those who assaulted police officers.
Vice President Mike Pence with Meghan McCain at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, October 1, 2025
“People who assaulted police officers should never have been pardoned,” Pence said to applause from many of the approximately 200 audience members.
Pence, speaking in the institute’s full-sized replica of the US Senate Chamber, also acknowledged a flood of memories upon entering the room. He said he had not been in the actual Senate Chamber since Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence said he is proud that “by God’s grace I did my duty on Jan. 6 to see the peaceful transfer of power in the United States.
“To be here in a similar environment flooded my mind with memories. I hope it will be remembered as a triumph of freedom thanks to the courage of law enforcement… Every member in the chamber, Republican and Democrat, came back to their post and did their duty and I believe history will remember it that way.”
During a discussion with podcaster Meghan McCain that lasted more than an hour, titled “Populism, Conservatism and Civility: A Conversation with Mike Pence,” Pence said that Americans of all political leanings have the duty to condemn violence and promote civility.
He warned against having the knee jerk reaction of blaming an entire party when “a deranged individual” commits an act of political violence. The former vice president, however, also was troubled by a survey cited by McCain, that found that five times as many young liberals said political violence is sometimes justified as did young conservatives.
“That should be a wake-up call for my friends in the Democratic party and the leaders on the progressive left,” Pence said. “Political violence has to be universally condemned.”
Pence, the nation’s 48th vice president and former governor of and congressman from Indiana, agreed with McCain that social media plays a role in indoctrinating young people into a culture where political violence is acceptable.
“We have to raise up our children, as the Good Book says, in the way they should go and the way they should go is that we settle our differences through the political process and reject violence.”
Pence’s discussion about the need for civility and peaceful debate took on added resonance — and poignance — in the wake of the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.