That is, if you appreciate the second in command standing up for his oath to the Constitution instead of a man, and if you long for the days when America respected our European allies and was a proud member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
You can certainly disagree with Pence’s ideology, but all Americans should be able to appreciate his willingness to draw a line.
On a recent trip to the U.S. military's Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, current Vice President JD Vance said, “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires” when speaking about President Trump’s fascination with acquiring Greenland.
Sorry, vice president. Yes, in some cases, we can ignore the “president’s desires,” and in other cases, we should, as in the case of Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.
Vance went on to say, “When the president says we have to have Greenland, what he’s saying is this island is not safe” from the likes of Russia and China.
He referenced President Trump with “The president said in his State of the Union address and he was very clear about this, is we respect the self-determination of the people of Greenland, but argument again to them is I think you’d be a lot better coming under the United States security umbrella than you have been under Denmark’s security umbrella. Because what Denmark’s security umbrella has meant is effectively, they’ve passed it all off to brave Americans and hope that we would pick up the tab.”
Americans can certainly discuss whether it is in our security interest to somehow have a greater presence in Greenland, but Vance’s word choice is the most concerning.
A Fox News survey conducted from March 14 to 17 showed that 70% of registered voters opposed Trump's goal of making Greenland the 51st state. Just 26% of respondents supported the Greenland plan.
The idea is even more unpopular with Greenlanders. A new survey conducted by Verian and commissioned by the Danish paper Berlingske showed that an overwhelming 85% of Greenlanders do not want their island to become a part of the United States. Only 6% are in favor of becoming part of the U.S., and 9% are undecided.
Vance’s disdain for our European allies has been on display for some time now. Just before Vance left for Greenland, we learned that Vance was a member of the Signal group chat, “Houthi PC small group,” which Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, was accidentally invited to join.
The group of national security officials in the Trump administration discussed the attack plans for Houthi rebels in Yemen.
On the text chain, Vance shared that the Houthis were interfering with Europe’s trade in the Suez Canal more than the U.S., writing “I just hate bailing out Europe again.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agreed by writing, "VP: I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's PATHETIC."
Perhaps Vance and Hegseth need a reminder that Denmark made the ultimate sacrifice 43 times on behalf of the United States and that after 9/11, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in its history, declaring that the attacks on the United States were an attack on all NATO allies, triggering the collective defense clause.
There were 3621 military deaths during the war in Afghanistan. 2461 were U.S. soldiers, leaving 1160 soldiers lost to our NATO allies. The U.S. lost 7.96 deaths per million. The country that came in second for the number of lives lost per capita was the aforementioned Denmark, with 7.82 deaths per million, having lost 43 Danish soldiers.
Pence, on the other hand, has a long history of supporting NATO. In a memo from 2024, Pence wrote: “While not perfect, NATO has been an irreplaceable part of American foreign policy since 1949. Abandoning NATO would embolden our enemies and betray our allies. Despite some of its present shortcomings, a strong NATO remains critical to America’s global leadership and interests abroad.”
During a time in our country’s history when the checks and balances on one of the coequal branches of government seem to be barely hanging on, we should all want a principled and honorable number two.
In his memoir “So Help Me God,” Pence wrote that in a New Year’s Day 2021 phone call, Trump told Pence: “You’re too honest,” he chided, predicting that “hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts” and “people are gonna think you’re stupid.”
Even after being scolded by the president of the United States a few days earlier and with his life at risk, Pence did the noble thing and certified the 2020 election for President. Joe Biden.
I miss having a second in command who prioritizes our founding principles and the rule of law over his boss's whims. I miss Vice President Mike Pence.
Lynn Schmidt is a columnist and Editorial Board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She holds a master's of science in political science as well as a bachelor's of science in nursing.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.