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At this point Mike Pence is hated by all of the left, most of the center, and much of the right. So why did he bother running for President? The same reason any washed up political figure does anything: money. He was hoping to limp along in the race all the way to Iowa, use his media coverage leading up to the Iowa caucus to promote his next book, make a million bucks, and disappear into obscurity.

The trouble for Pence is that while you only really need to poll at perhaps 5% to keep limping along like that, Pence couldn’t even pull that off. His numbers were so ugly that he couldn’t even bring in the trickle of money required to keep limping along. Worse, it appeared he wasn’t even going to qualify for the next Republican primary debate. How embarrassing is that? No one participating in these debates is in contention. Yet Pence’s numbers are so much worse than theirs, he was in danger of not making the stage.

So now Mike Pence is doing what all failed candidates do when they’re forced to drop out but want to pretend they’re not dropping out: he’s suspending his campaign. Has anyone ever suspended their campaign and then actually made a comeback? Of course not. But keep in mind that with Donald Trump heading for criminal trial and prison, we could end up seeing a bizarre Republican National Convention full of floor fights.

So maybe Pence envisions himself getting back into the race later, after Trump is hauled away. He still won’t have any support at that point, but a man can dream, right? The kicker is that while Pence’s political relevance is now over (it was over awhile ago), he is about to become very relevant in one specific way. He’ll be forced to testify during Trump’s criminal trial in March. Pence may finally become relevant right around the time of the Iowa caucus – just not in the way that he had been hoping.

The post Mike Pence just surrendered appeared first on Palmer Report.

Vivek Ramaswamy defended his proposed Israel policies, which include cutting aid to Israel and conditioning funding to the Jewish state’s war against Hamas, in a speech to Jewish Republicans on Saturday.

Ramaswamy told the Republican Jewish Coalition that the United States should “mind our own affairs to avoid foreign military entanglements that do not relate directly to our homeland.”

The comment drew a few scattered boos from the audience, leading Ramaswamy to defend himself as a “George Washington America-First conservative”—explaining to the Jewish American crowd that “[Israeli founder David] Ben Gurion is to Israel as George Washington is to this country.”

The speech comes as the candidate has faced criticism for his positions on Israel. The Republican presidential candidate, who is polling at around 4.5 percent, has taken shifting positions on military aid to Israel throughout the primary, but said he supports ending it by 2028.

“Many of you have heard my policy views described by the press as unfriendly to Israel,” said Ramaswamy. “Some have even described me and my views as anti-Israel.”

“We have enough anti-Semitism in this country that we don’t need to artificially manufacture more of it,” he added. “My message to you this morning will be, I believe, the most pro-Israel vision that you will hear today.”

Ramaswamy went on to say he would support bringing the “Abraham Accords to new heights” and would give Israel full American diplomatic support at the United Nations and other international venues.

Ramaswamy said last week that he opposes additional U.S. military funding to Israel, saying the Jewish state has yet to come up with a clear “objective” in Gaza. Israel has said its objective is to destroy the political and military infrastructure of Hamas.

But he told the RJC that Israel should pursue its own goals in Gaza without restrictions from the United States.

“If Israel wants to destroy Hamas, Israel should go ahead and destroy Hamas,” he said. “If Israel wants to destroy Hezbollah, Israel should go ahead and destroy Hezbollah … If Israel wants to at long last abandon the myth of the two-state solution, Israel should go ahead and abandon the two-state solution.”

The post Ramaswamy Defends Opposition to Israel Aid in Speech to Jewish Republicans appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.