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Former Vice President Mike Pence officially launched his presidential campaign this week.
Here’s where he stands on some top issues:
Abortion
Pence is vocal about his opposition to abortion rights, having celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, declaring that "a new arena in the cause of life has emerged and it is incumbent on all who cherish the sanctity of life to resolve that we will take the defense of the unborn and support for women in crisis pregnancies to every state capitol in America."
He's said thinks Americans would "welcome" a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks, but Pence has celebrated states like Florida for passing further restrictions (the state recently passed a ban on most abortions after six weeks).
An aide told NBC News in a story that published in May that Pence supports rape, incest and life-of-the-mother exceptions to abortion restrictions.
Asked about whether abortion restrictions should impact IVF treatments, Pence recalled his family's struggle with infertility and told CBS News last year, "I fully support fertility treatments and I think they deserve the protection of the law."
China
Pence took an active role in the Trump administration's posture toward China, trying to walk the line between the push for cooperation while also holding the nation accountable.
During a key speech on China in 2018, he warned that “the dream of freedom remains distant for the Chinese people,” criticized its “wholesale theft of American technology,” its military “aggression” and “reckless harassment,” and that “China is meddling in America’s democracy.”
After he left office, Pence spoke at the Heritage Foundation in July of 2021, warning that “the Chinese Communist Party aspires not merely to join the community of economically developed nations, but to sit atop a new global order, created in its own image. A world in which freedom is constrained, but Beijing’s power is not.”
Entitlements
Pence has tried to differentiate himself from many in the GOP presidential field by arguing that America needs to have a realistic conversation about making changes to entitlements to curb the rising debt and to account for concerns about insolvency of those programs.
During a CNBC interview in February, Pence said that entitlements need to be put on the table in the long-term, but he didn't outline specifics on what he would want to do to the programs outside of a promise not to make changes that would affect those retiring in the next 25 years.
"We’re looking at a debt crisis in this country over the next 25 years that is driven by entitlements, and nobody in Washington, D.C., wants to talk about it," he said.
"There’s lots of good ideas to solve this that are common sense that ... don’t affect anybody that’s gonna retire in the next 25 years. I mean, you could phase in just like Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill did 50 years ago. They raised the retirement age to 67. They, they made Social Security solvent until 2009. The things that you could do in personal savings accounts in the long term, allowing younger Americans to get a higher rate of return. ... But these are all ideas but the first job is to be straight, the second job is get everybody at the table."
Immigration
Pence is severely critical of the Biden administration’s approach to immigration and border policy, and he has argued that the Trump administration's policies made the situation better.
In an interview with NBC News in May, Pence highlighted the administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy, invoking the Title 42 policy to curb migration during the pandemic and the administration's construction of new border fencing.
2020 election
Pence has defended his decision to oversee the certification of the 2020 presidential election and has said the "2020 election was not stolen."
“The 2020 election was not stolen. We have a process in this country, where states conduct elections. Questions of irregularities and fraud are then adjudicated in the courts, the states then certify electoral votes, and as we did on January 6, in the wake of that terrible violence, the role of the Congress is to open and count those votes and to certify the election. We did that, until Biden was elected President of the United States of America," Pence told CBS last year.
But he has on multiple occasions argued that there were "significant voting irregularities" during the election."
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“That’s not to say that there weren’t irregularities in the election, there were. There were states that changed the rules governing the elections, all in the name of Covid. Ultimately, the courts upheld those and the allegations about widespread fraud would never be supported by the facts," he told NBC News in May.
"One of the tragic consequences of the riot that took place that day was that it ultimately disrupted a full hearing and a full debate over the concerns of really millions of Americans and many members of Congress about what had taken place in the course of the election."
Taxes
Pence regularly invokes the GOP's "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act" from 2017 to argue the Trump administration prioritized cutting taxes -- despite Democratic arguments the bill did more to help corporations than the middle class.
It was a major issue during Pence's October 2020 debate with his eventual successor, then-Sen. Kamala Harris.
"President Trump cut taxes, across the board. Despite what Senator Harris says, the average American family of four had $2,000 in savings in taxes. And with the rise in wages that occurred, most predominantly for blue-collar, hardworking Americans, the average household income for a family of four increased by $4,000 following President Trump’s tax cuts," Pence said.
Trump
Pence speaks highly of his time as vice president and regularly points to the Trump administration's policies. But he's sought to distance himself from former President Donald Trump's tone.
"As I've traveled around the country, I've heard two things. Number one, I've heard countless Americans tell me that they want to get back to the policies of the Trump-Pence administration, policies that saw us make historic investments in our military, saw a peaceful and stable world, that saw our economy revived through tax cuts and unleashing American energy, saw conservatives on our courts and a secure southern border," he said to NBC News in February.
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"But the next thing I hear, Ali, is that they want to see us and our politics return to the kind of civility and respect that Americans show one another every day."
But he has been more direct in his criticism of Trump's rhetoric, particularly around the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"I will tell you that I think the president’s words that day were reckless. And they endangered me and my family and everyone serving at the Capitol," he told NBC News in May.
Ukraine
Pence has also sought to make a contrast with some other GOP presidential candidates on the war in Ukraine.
"We need to stand with President Zelenskyy and stand with the courageous soldiers in Ukraine until they achieve that victory," he told NBC News in February.
"Anyone who believes that Vladimir Putin would stop at the western border of Ukraine has another thing coming. ... America first is not America alone."
