Former Vice President Mike Pence and former Sen. Jeff Flake, also known as the Butch and the Sundance of Washington, D.C., got together for an evening to reminisce about old times and advise young students at Arizona State University about how to be good politicians.
Pence and Flake got their nicknames from the 1969 Western crime film, which follows a pair of outlaws known for their camaraderie. This conservative duo is better known for their advocacy for limited government, lower taxes and a healthy federal budget.
“You can guess which one was the Robert Redford character and which one was the lesser attractive but more cunning Paul Newman,” said Pence, sitting next to Flake, the host, for ASU’s “Dialogues for Democracy,” a nonpartisan speaker series on Tuesday evening.
After an evening at ASU, Pence will travel to Tennessee over the weekend for a college symposium.
Pence has been active in the higher education circles as he promotes his upcoming book, “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience,” which is coming out in June.
Besides from working as a professor of practice at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government in Virginia, where Pence teaches politics and leadership, he also leads Advancing American Freedom, a policy and advocacy organization.
Pence’s think tank poaches from Heritage
CNN recently reported an ideological battle brewing between Advancing American Freedom, which leans toward Reagan-era conservatism, and the Heritage Foundation, which is more aligned with the MAGA movement and behind Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second term. The report alleges tensions over poached staffers and donors.
Flake, who serves as the director of ASU’s Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan academic hub, noted their shared history during the hourlong talk.
Both of them ran conservative think tanks during the 1990s — with Pence at the Indiana Policy Review and Flake at Arizona’s Goldwater Institute — before becoming colleagues in Congress in 2000. Not only that, their offices were next door to each other.
Flake and Pence’s friendship took a turn when Flake emerged as an outspoken critic of Pence’s 2016 running mate, President Donald Trump.
Many headlines around 2017 suggested they were no longer close, but Flake, in an op-ed years later, revealed that Pence called to check on him after the June 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball practice.
Eventually, the underlying strain in their relationship, stemming from Flake’s opposition to Trump, naturally dissolved after Jan. 6, when Pence opposed Trump’s wishes by certifying the 2020 election results as a mob outside the Capitol chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Now, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” are back.
Pence gives Trump credit for Iran
The former vice president conveyed his pride in the armed forces engaged in the hostilities in the Middle East.
“I want to give the president all the credit in the world for having the courage to hold,” he said. “I know from my experience that this war has been going on for 47 years.”
He said Trump’s “willingness to strike at their nuclear facilities when they wouldn’t negotiate them away a year ago is historic.”
Calling the cause a just one, Pence said he hoped for an end to the threats inside Iran and for Iranians to reclaim their country.
“We do that, not only for the region, but the American people, our allies, Israel, and the world will be more secure if the people of Iran reclaim the future of freedom.”
Earlier on, the former vice president called Trump “a very compelling” and “persuasive figure,” before suggesting the president could also put the U.S. in the right fiscal direction.
“Those are very worthy fights,” said Pence. “When we arrived in Congress, the national debt was somewhere around $3 trillion. Last week, it cleared $39 trillion.”
He applauded Flake for championing fiscal responsibility and added that he wished the Trump-Pence administration had done more to curb the national debt instead of adding roughly $10 trillion to it, primarily on account of COVID-19-related emergency spending.
“That’s one of the reasons why you want to balance the federal budget: a crisis comes along, and the government’s got to be able to meet that moment,” Pence said.
Flake and Pence reflect on Jan. 6
Flake noted that on Jan. 6, 2001, he and Pence, two freshly elected congressmen, sat together in the House chamber and watched Vice President Al Gore read the official tally from the Electoral College that said he would not be president in one of the closest presidential elections in U.S. history, after the Supreme Court ultimately stepped in to end the recount.
“I remember both of us saying, ‘What a class act,’” said Flake. “He did what I thought he thought was the right thing … 20 years later, you are in that position.”
Pence responded by describing Jan. 6, 2021, as “one of the darkest days in the history of the U.S. Capitol.”
“I’ll always believe by God’s grace that I did my duty that day to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
The pandemic forced changes to the voting process that increased concerns over voter fraud, especially in places like Arizona.
“There were states that changed the rules for counting ballots, particularly mail ballots,” said Pence.
“But there was never any evidence of widespread fraud that would change the outcome of the election.”
His wife, Karen, and daughter, Charlotte, were in the gallery when the unrest unfolded. That day, the Pences found shelter in the vice presidential office before moving to the parking garage below the Senate floor.
“I had peace about what I was doing, but I had concerns about Karen,” he said. “She and my daughter were there till four in the morning, till the gavel fell.”
Who is Mike Pence?
Pence was elected to the House of Representatives at the age of 29 and served for 12 years until he successfully ran for governor of Indiana.
“I never got over it the whole time 12 years in Congress, the idea to walk up those steps to cast a vote on behalf of the people of Indiana,” said Pence.
The same went for his time as governor and vice president. “I’m just a small-town guy from southern Indiana … grew up with the cornfield in my backyard.”
“My dad really had no use for lawyers or politicians,” Pence said of Edward Pence, who ran a chain of gas stations. “But I just had a sense of calling in my life to public service,” he added.
Pence met President Donald Trump only once before he was asked to join the ticket. He recalled two things he considered at the time. “No. 1, we need to know them better. Everything we do, we do as a family,” but there was no time. “And No. 2, I need to know the job description,” he added. “Most vice presidents haven’t had much to do. I wanted to understand that well.”
The Trump camp offered to host the Pences at the president’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, over the weekend. Trump was looking for an “active” teammate, someone like Pence, the known former congressman in Washington, D.C.
Despite not coming from a political family, the former vice president, a Democrat in his early life, said he found the late President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “deeply inspiring.”
The JFK Library Foundation honored Pence with the 2025 Courage Award for his actions on Jan. 6. The former vice president said he considered it a great honor.
Meanwhile, MLK was a hero to him for being “a man of profound Christian faith.”
After voting for President Jimmy Carter in 1980, Pence said he started listening to voices such as President Ronald Reagan and Arizona’s late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. Once Pence “joined the conservative movement (he) never went back.”
“I tell people I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” Pence said. “My faith, I hope, comes across as the most important thing in my life. It certainly is what sustains me.”
His latest book, “What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience,” takes inspiration from “The Conscience of a Conservative” by Goldwater.
“An awful lot of it still holds up. Some of it’s dated, and I write about that, but the principles at the heart of the Constitution — the principles of fiscal responsibility, reform, constitutional governance, limited government are all still true today,” Pence said.
Pence’s advice
Pence offered some advice to students on what holds our modern society and government together.
“I honestly believe that democracy depends on heavy doses of civility, and that for me to be a conservative is to preserve the tradition of civility and public life,” he said.
“I’m a conservative, but I’m not in a bad mood about it,” the former vice president added.
Pence said he considered progressive U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont a friend, calling him “the nicest socialist” he’d ever met.
“I don’t think we agree on anything except the fact that he’s an American who stands by what he believes in,” he added.
Pence brought up his children several times, especially his daughter, Charlotte, 32. She has published a children’s book, "Marlon Bundo’s A Day in the Life of the Vice President," about her bunny rabbit while in the White House.
“We were loading up onto Air Force Two. I’m carrying the dog, Karen’s carrying the two cats, and then the aides all carried up a cage with a black and white rabbit in it,” said Pence. Turns out, the bunny, named Marlon Bundo, was the first to board an Air Force One fleet in American history, he said, encouraging attendees to read the chronicles. In another book, “Go Home for Dinner: Advice on How Faith Makes a Family,” co-written by the father and daughter, the Pences talk about prioritizing what’s most important.
“Our faith is the foundation of our lives and our families, but also habits of the mind,” Pence said. “I don’t think you have to choose between living out your values, making your family a priority, and going into public service, but you do have to make choices along the way.”
Space Force
Pence said his proudest accomplishment is the U.S. Space Force. Recalling a time when the president asked him to head the National Space Council, Pence said, “Now I thought for half a second. I said, ‘Well, he doesn’t know that the only committee I ever asked to be on was the space subcommittee of the Science Committee, and he didn’t know that the Pence family had vacationed at Cape Canaveral just to see the rockets. He didn’t know that I’d taken all three of my kids to a shuttle launch, and that I was like a total Star Trek fan.’”
“We are the dominant force in space already, but China’s investing immensely. Other nations are investing immensely. And you know, as you go into that final frontier, we want to carry American ideals, the ideals of freedom, into that frontier as well.”