The University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) recently announced that the 48th Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, will be returning to speak in Hyde Park on April 28th, having previously spoke at the IOP in 2022 while promoting his book So Help Me God. The event will center around Pence’s thoughts on President Trump’s second administration, with an emphasis on the ongoing conflict in Iran and Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Michael “Mike” Richard Pence served as the Vice President in the first Trump administration. He was remembered for certifying his own loss in the 2020 election and making a strong statement of condemnation after rioters attempted to storm the capital on January 6th. He served as the head of President Trump’s coronavirus task force in 2020, where he led the team whose work culminated in Operation Warp Speed’s successful creation of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Prior to serving as Vice President, Pence was the Governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017 and before that was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.
Pence is a staunch conservative who is well known for allowing his religious values to influence his political opinions. He most recently recruited heavily from other conservative think tanks to establish his own think tank. To hear more about the event, I had the chance to sit down with one of its planned moderators, Tyler Shasteen. Tyler is a fourth-year student at UChicago and currently serves as the President of UChicago’s Turning Point USA chapter, as a member of the IOP’s Student Advisory, and as the City of Chicago’s 5th Ward GOP Committeeman.
Noah Bauserman: Yeah, so what topics do you hope to address with Vice President Pence primarily?
Tyler Shasteen: So I’m really interested in talking to him about current events. I’m interested in his thoughts on the [second] Trump administration’s approach to immigration policy. I’m interested in talking to him about the Iran War and I’m interested in maybe spending a little bit of time talking about his refusal to endorse [Trump] in the last election, which I think, in the eyes of many conservatives, sort of soured his image in their eyes when he made that decision. I understand he has problems with Trump, but to not endorse is to signal indifference to who the nominee is, and I think that it could have had larger implications [had Harris won]. I’m also interested in talking to him about 2028: does he see himself being able to support JD Vance or Marco Rubio? Also, just where does he see himself fitting into the Republican Party? I know he’s writing a book right now about basically restoring Reagan-era conservatism, and he spoke out against the current Republican Party and like the way it’s going away from traditional conservatism. I think a lot of those issues are interesting. Maybe also something like immigration, right? Where Reagan-era conservatism was much more relaxed than current era conservatism is certainly fascinating. I mean, Reagan had mass amnesty as a part of his administration.
NB: Well, Reagan was more laissez-faire, whereas I think to call Trump a libertarian would be a grave mischaracterisation.
TS: Certainly. Economics have changed, but also wartime policy. There is a genuine divide right now in the Republican Party on interventionism, and I’m sure you see it here on campus. There are people who are supportive of the actions in Iran and people who aren’t. I expect Pence to be supportive of what’s going on in Iran. I believe he’s made some comments to that effect, but I’m interested in diving into that, because I think certainly it’s clear that the Trump administration has taken a much more aggressive posture than they did in the first administration.
NB: Who do you think this event is for? Do you think a person like Mike Pence, who, like you kind of alluded to earlier, has kind of been cast out by some of the more diehard MAGA members of his party, will appeal more to the center-left and center-right student as opposed to the more conservative student?
TS: Just in my conversations with the other student moderators, we plan to make this event about current events. It’s going to be an interesting event because we’re going to be talking about what’s going on right now. I don’t want the vice president to dwell much on the past.
NB: That’s certainly good, because a lot of his coverage does come from the 2020-2022 time frame, and it seems he’s stuck there. Or at least the media’s characterization has him stuck in that moment in time.
TS: Exactly. I’m not really interested in going into that very much. Maybe the other moderators will be, but I think from just my conversations with them, we are very interested in talking about what’s going on right now. So I think that basically the event’s gonna have a broader appeal than maybe just what the speaker would normally draw. I would encourage people who are sort of disappointed in Mike Pence or even people who are supportive of what Mike Pence has done in the past to attend. I think it’s going to be an event for everyone and I think there will be balance in the moderation, which I think is important as well. You know, oftentimes people may not come to an IOP event because they’re worried, “Well, I’m not going to like the opinions expressed that are all going to come from a certain angle.” I know where there was a complaint whenever Bill Barr came to an event and the moderator, who was a leftist, spent the entire time talking about January 6th and the 2020 election.
NB: Especially with Pence, he wrote an entire book on that. I think that’s kind of a tiresome topic.
TS: When there’s an event like that, for me, that was super uninteresting. I think the panel of people talking to [Vice President Pence] is good. So I’m hopeful and excited about the prospects of this event. Mike Pence can be, if you’ve watched his interviews, a tough nut to crack when it comes to getting him to say anything noteworthy or newsworthy. I think we’re going to press him on these things, and I think hopefully, as students, he might have his guard down a little bit more. You know, we’re not trained journalists. He’s not going into this with the idea that we’re going to have a necessarily adversarial posture. I think, particularly for me, as the conservative on the panel, I do have issues with things Mike Pence has done. But also sometimes I’m at odds with the Trump administration, too. You’re not gonna agree with anybody all the time, and so I am interested in the conversation. I think it’ll be a good conversation. I would hope everybody who has an interest in current events will show up.
NB: Will there be an opportunity for students to interact with the vice president, be that through questions or something similar?
T: So we are still developing the event because [it’s] at the end of April. So I’m honestly not entirely sure. I would direct you to the sign-up page right now. I’m hopeful that we would be able to do that, but I’m not sure exactly what it’ll be. If we’re not able to hear directly from the audience, I would encourage people to contact me with things they want me to talk about. You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Instagram, and you can find me on X as well. I actually asked people on LinkedIn to send me questions about the event.
~End of the Interview~
This event with former Vice President Pence will take place on April 28th, 2026. More information is to come, and a registration link on the IOP website’s “upcoming events” page is expected to be made available soon.