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In a recent interview in The Atlantic, retiring Sen. Mitt Romney unloaded on former Vice President Mike Pence, who has attempted to distance himself from Donald Trump since the January 6 insurrection.

No one has been “more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God’s will to things that were ungodly than Mike Pence,” Romney said.

Pence responded to Romney in a decidedly Penceian way during an interview with CNN on Sunday.

“Look, Mitt Romney has no idea what I was doing in the administration,” Pence said. “I haven’t talked to Mitt Romney for years. He can go off into retirement.”

As The Daily Beast notes, Pence didn’t always feel that way about Romney. He praised him in a book last year as “good, public-spirited man with a servant’s heart.”

Pence has attempted a difficult balancing act with Trump, criticizing his boss for pressuring him to overturn the 2020 election while saying he was “incredibly proud” of the Trump administration’s record. That strategy hasn’t been successful so far. Pence is currently polling at 7 percent in the GOP race for president.

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This is how change happens.

One story at a time.

This investigative reporting takes time too. Months of research. Weeks of writing, editing, and fact checking—and putting together the photography, art, video, and audio that tell the stories in a new way, illuminating new perspectives and voices.

We can afford to take our time because we don’t report to oligarchs or corporations. We report to you, and for you.

And the stakes are high. Democracy is on the defense. We’ve been exposing corruption and scandal for five decades, and this is a pivotal moment in our country’s history. Will democracy prevail? We won’t wait for time to tell—independent journalism is essential for democracy, and we’ll keep doing our part to amplify the free press.

So, we’re asking: Will you join the fight? Mother Jones has been here for 50 years, and we need your support to fuel the future of investigative journalism. Mark our 50th anniversary with a gift of any amount.

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