WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.— Prompted by chants of "four more years," Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday echoed his boss' defiance in the face of reelection defeat — and failures to successfully challenge the Nov. 3 results — during a speech to young conservatives gathered in West Palm Beach.
"As our election contest continues, I'll make you a promise," Pence said to loud cheers on the closing day of the Turning Point USA summit at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. "We're going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted. We're going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out."
Pence noted that President Donald Trump, who lost the popular vote to President-elect Joe Biden by 7 million votes, captured more votes than any other sitting president before. And, Pence added, Trump received the largest share of votes cast by minority voters in six decades while Republicans flipped 12 seats in the U.S. Congress.
Pence also challenged the Turning Point audience to "stay in the fight" and help the GOP keep control of the U.S. Senate by winning runoff races in Georgia slated for Jan. 5.
"We're going to win Georgia, we're going to save America and we'll never stop fighting to make America great again," he said. "You watch."
Pence's appearance took place a day before Trump arrives in town for a 10-day holiday visit.
The vice president spoke as the Trump White House's failed efforts to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 vote appear to rest on fringe ideas — including a suggestion the president declare martial law in a handful of states — from a narrow group of presidential advisers, including attorney Sidney Powell, who was dropped from Rudy Giuliani's legal team a month ago.
During his half-hour speech at Turning Point, Pence lauded the appointment of three U.S. Supreme Court justices and the additional untold number of conservative federal judges.
Pence, however, did not note that the three Trump-named high court justices were part of two apparent unanimous decisions to not even listen to Trump's and his allies' challenges to election vote counts in key swing states won by Biden. And other Trump-selected federal judges have also rejected challenges filed by the Trump campaign and allies as well, sometimes with admonishment in their rulings.
And while Pence called on the youths at Turning Point to assist in winning the Georgia races, he didn't mention Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The Kentucky Republican has publicly congratulated Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their victory. And he has reportedly told Senate Republicans not to contest the Electoral College votes when they are read and counted in the U.S. Senate on Jan. 6.
Pence, whose biggest role in office was leading the White House coronavirus task force, didn't get to the pandemic until a third of the way through his prepared remarks.
The vice president did not mention the 320,000-plus Americans that have died from the virus this year. Nor did he discuss the current surge in cases, more than 200,000 new infections per day.
Nor did he call on those listening to him at Turning Point, mostly young people packed into the ballroom without face coverings, to wear masks and practice social distancing.
But he did tell the crowd that of the 22 million Americans that lost their jobs because of the shutdown this year, 12 million had gone back to work.
"We are opening up America again," he said.
Pence also said the Trump administration had delivered on a critical promise: a vaccine.
"Today we have not one but two safe and effective coronavirus vaccines being administered all across America," he said. "Some said it couldn't be done but in this season of hope, hope is on the way. Thanks to your president and incredible American ingenuity, under Operation Warp Speed we have come to the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic."
The bulk of Pence's speech Tuesday was a checklist of what he called Trump administration policy achievements.
The vice president lauded the administration for the biggest increase in military spending since the Reagan years in the 1980s. And he called the 2017 tax legislation signed by Trump the "largest" tax cut and reform in America's history.
In foreign affairs, Pence highlighted the U.S. exit from the Iranian nuclear deal, the defeat of the Islamic State group and the missile strike ordered by Trump in January that killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani. He also noted the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the moves by four Arab nations to recognize Israel's right to exist.
"That is peace through strength," he said.
