Former Vice President Mike Pence sees an opening for the right to “rediscover” what it means to be a conservative — saying Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are part of movements “contrary” to conservatism, and offering critiques of the Heritage Foundation.

Pence on Monday announced a book coming next year called “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience.” A release bills the book as the 21st-Century version of Barry Goldwater's foundational "Conscience of a Conservative.”

In a phone interview on Monday, Pence told me his concern with the direction of the Republican party has only grown in the two years since he ended his 2024 presidential primary campaign. Republicans, he said, are “embracing more isolationist views, particularly with regard to Russia's unprovoked and brutal invasion in Ukraine.”

“There are voices that we've seen just in recent days, questioning, in no uncertain terms, American’s support for Israel,” Pence said. “We've seen our party walking away from a commitment to free market economics, embracing broad based tariffs — which are taxes — against friend and foe alike. We've seen an administration embracing the state ownership of business. We've seen members of Congress promoting price controls, and then going all the way back to the Republican platform in 2024 — the marginalizing of the right to life, the appointment of a pro-abortion secretary of [Health and Human Services] and an effort in the party to simply relegate the question of abortion to be a state-only issue.”

The book announcement comes as an ideological civil war rages about which principles and figures are welcome in the conservative movement in the wake of Carlson last week interviewing antisemitic white nationalist commentator Nick Fuentes. IYMI, I wrote about that civil war on the right here — and much more on that below.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts defended Carlson in a stand against “cancel culture,” sparking massive backlash from others on the right. Later, signs at a Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas said “TUCKER IS NOT MAGA.”

Asked about the recent controversy, Pence said a chapter in his book is titled “The Case for Israel.”

“I have long-held the belief that literally, since the American founding, the support for Israel and return of the Jewish people to their historic homeland came straight out of the heart of the American people,” Pence said. “There’s no room in the conservative movement for opposing American support for Israel, and there's absolutely no room in the conservative movement for antisemitism.”

I asked if Pence considers Carlson a part of the conservative movement.

“He's part of an isolationist right that, frankly, has history in the Republican Party,” Pence said. “But I particularly have been frustrated to see his consistent opposition to U.S. support for Israel. When Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon came out against the use of military force to take down the Iranian nuclear program, I actually think they lost some footing with the president and with the movement, because President Trump took the bold and courageous step of using military forces to strike the Iranian nuclear capability.”

Carlson and Bannon, Pence said, are “part of an isolationist movement on the right that is contrary to the long tradition of the conservative movement in this country.”

Pence said he has a long history with the Heritage Foundation, relying on them when he was a talk show host and noting that the organization’s late co-founder and former president Ed Feulner became a member of the board for the think tank Pence founded, Advancing American Freedom. But he said he has “been disappointed and surprised on a number of occasions” by Heritage Foundation positions, like its opposition to an aid package to Ukraine, and to see it “embrace the broad-based tariffs that the president imposed on friend and foe alike.”

“When Heritage came out in favor of the appointment of a pro-abortion Secretary of HHS” — referring to Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — “it just struck me that the conservative movement would do well with a reminder of what we believe.”

Pence made criticisms of Kennedy’s leadership on the issue of abortion, though did not write off MAHA altogether.

“I very much identify with the need for us to be thinking very carefully about how we can improve the health of the people of this country,” Pence said. “But for me, at the end of the........

© The Hill