Former VP Mike Pence’s newest job? George Mason University professor
Entrance to George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Robert Knopes/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(FAIRFAX, Va.) — Former Vice President Mike Pence will teach politics at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government in the spring.
The former vice president will teach students studying political science, law, public administration, and related fields at the university located in Virginia outside the nation’s capital.
Vice president to President Donald Trump from 2017-2021, Pence will teach seminars that “explore the intersection of politics, leadership, and national governance,” according to George Mason University.
As a public official who has served in both legislative and executive branch roles as congressman, governor and then vice president, Pence said he is excited to share the lessons he has learned with the next generation. Pence is also expected to draw on lessons directly pertaining to his experiences on the campaign trail, in the West Wing and as president of the U.S. Senate, the university said.
“Throughout my years of public service, I have seen firsthand the importance of principled leadership and fidelity to the Constitution in shaping the future of our nation,” Pence said in a statement. “I look forward to sharing these lessons with the next generation of American leaders and learning from the remarkable students and faculty of George Mason University.”
The former vice president acknowledged the importance of higher-level education, saying it plays a “vital role” in preparing future generations for “lives of service and integrity.”
“Now more than ever we should be investing our time and resources into civil discourse on campus, and I’m honored to contribute to that mission,” Pence said.
Since his time as vice president, Pence started his conservative organization, Advancing American Freedom, in 2021 and taught politics at Grove City College in Pennsylvania in 2024 after ending his presidential campaign in 2023.
US President Donald Trump (R) meets Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) on the first day of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan on June 28, 2019. (Photo by Kremlin Press Office / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s Friday deadline has arrived for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face “secondary sanctions” against countries that buy oil from Russia.
But uncertainty remains as to whether the U.S. will hit Moscow with new economic penalties amid talk of a possible bilateral meeting between Trump and Putin happening soon.
Trump on Thursday was asked directly if his Aug. 8 deadline for Putin to make peace or face consequences still applied.
“It’s gonna be up to him,” the president responded. “We’re going to see what he has to say. It’s gonna be up to him. Very disappointed.”The White House is pushing for a trilateral summit between Trump, Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though Trump said Putin meeting with Zelenskyy wasn’t a condition for he and Putin to meet.
“They would like to meet with me and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing,” Trump said on Thursday.
Trump, who once said he could end the Russia-Ukraine war within his first 24 hours in office and touted his personal relationship with Putin, has expressed increasing frustration with the Russian leader.
In mid-July, Trump said he was giving Putin a 50-day ultimatum to stop the fighting. He then moved up the timeline to 10 days, citing his disappointment with Putin.
“I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made,” Trump said at the time. “I’m not so interested in talking anymore. He talks, we have such nice conversations, such respectful and nice conversations, and then people die the following night in a — with a missile going into a town and hitting.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Russia escalated last week when Trump announced he was moving nuclear submarines in response to what he called “highly provocative statements” from the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, Dmitry Medvedev.
Medvedev, also the former president of Russia, had sounded off on Trump’s ceasefire deadline, writing on social media that “each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war.”
While Trump said the nuclear submarines would be moved in response, he and the White House would not specify what capabilities the submarines have or other questions surrounding the announcement.
And earlier this week, Trump indirectly upped the pressure on Russia by doubling his tariff rate against India over India’s imports of Russian oil.
(WASHINGTON) — More than a year after a Secret Service counter sniper team killed a would-be assassin targeting President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, a report from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General found the team faces “chronic understaffing.”
“The United States Secret Service’s (Secret Service) Counter Sniper Team (CS) is staffed 73 percent below the level necessary to meet mission requirements,” the inspector general’s report says. “Failure to appropriately staff CS could limit the Secret Service’s ability to properly protect our Nation’s most senior leaders, risking injury or assassination, and subsequent national-level harm to the country’s sense of safety and security.”
The Secret Service does not have an effective process to hire counter snipers, the IG found; all the while, the demand for them increased 151% from 2020 to 2024.
It takes about three years from the time a uniformed Secret Service officer joins the agency to when they can join the counter sniper team, according to the IG.
Counter snipers who missed mandatory weapons training supported 47 of the 426 events (11%) attended by protectees in calendar year 2024, the inspector general found.
Those events included events attended by then-President Joe Biden, including the wake for Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson in Dallas on Jan. 8, 2024, a campaign reception in New York on Feb. 7, 2024, and when he delivered remarks in Manchester, New Hampshire on March 11, 2024.
The United States Secret Service has 344 protectees and supported 5,141 protective visits (4,723 domestic, 337 foreign, and 81 U.S. territorial), and its budget is about $1.2 billion to support protectees, according to the IG.
While the number of total counter snipers was redacted, the IG found that during the 2024 campaign, the Secret Service would sometimes rely on other components’ counter snipers. For example, when the president is visiting a site, a Secret Service counter sniper team would automatically be assigned, but if it was for another protectee, the Secret Service might assign another component’s team or rely on state and local support because of the staffing issues, the IG found.
In an August 2024 letter, the acting deputy director of ICE asked for Homeland Security Investigations Special Response teams to be embedded with the counter sniper teams to better cover residences in Palm Beach, Florida, and Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
The Secret Service agreed with the inspector general’s assessment of the counter sniper team and are working on hiring more officers to become counter snipers.
Governor Wes Moore holds a press conference at Salvation Army Annapolis Corps with energy company partners to announce an initiative to help lower energy costs for Marylanders. Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — After a weekend of tit-for-tat jabs on social media and television, President Donald Trump and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore are continuing their feud — with Trump claiming the governor called him the “greatest president of my lifetime,” but Moore referring to this as an “imaginary conversation.”
While signing executive orders in the Oval Office Monday afternoon, Trump continued his ongoing criticism of Moore and the city of Baltimore for being a “deathbed” with “tremendous crime,” before flashing back to an interaction that he described fondly.
“I met him at the Army-Navy game. They said, ‘Oh there’s Gov. Moore. He’d love to see you.’ He came over to me, hugged me, shook my hand, you were there. He said, ‘Sir, you’re the greatest president of my lifetime,'” Trump said, adding that Moore had told him he was doing a “fantastic job.”
“I said, ‘That’s really nice that you say that. I’d love you to say that publicly, but I don’t think you can do that so it’s OK,'” the president continued.
But the governor denied that such a conversation ever happened, calling it “imaginary.”
“I’m a person who takes my integrity very seriously and I spent the past six months before that election campaigning as to why I did not think that he should be the next president of the United States, so when I say that that conversation never happened — that imaginary conversation never happened — I mean, that conversation never happened,” Moore told WBAL Radio.
Moore also turned to X Monday evening, writing, “Keep telling yourself that, Mr. President” in response to a clip of Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office.
A video clip from the Army-Navy game aired on Fox News Monday night, showing the two smiling and shaking hands, with Moore saying “it’s great to see you … it’s great to have you back here.” However, there was no mention of Moore calling Trump the “greatest president” of his lifetime.
“We are very, very anxious to be able to work closely with you,” Moore told the president, emphasizing federal funding to repair Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge as a focal point for the state of Maryland. A cargo ship struck the historic bridge last year, causing a partial structural collapse and plunging multiple vehicles from the bridge into the water.
“We’ll help you out,” Trump said after the two conversed some more.
Moore’s office told ABC News that the governor and the president did not have any other interaction at the Army-Navy game apart from what was seen in the video clip.
Yet the White House continues to double down on Trump’s remarks, telling ABC News that Moore’s flattering commentary took place “behind the scenes.”
“Governor Wes Moore heaped praise upon President Trump behind the scenes after the President’s landslide victory on November 5th,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement. “The only reason lightweight Wes Moore is attacking President Trump now is because he’s desperate for attention and delusional enough to think he has a chance at becoming the next President.”
In the Oval Office Tuesday, Trump once again denounced the city of Baltimore’s crime rate, calling it a “hell hole.”
“Wes Moore was telling me … ‘I want to walk with the president.’ Well, I said, ‘I want to work with you, too, someday. But first you’ve got to clean up your crime because I’m not walking.'”
Last week, Moore formally invited the president to join Baltimore officials on a public safety walk. In a letter, Moore highlighted the action Maryland has taken to combat crime while also underscoring the federal cuts made by the Trump administration that have impacted the state.
“Governor Wes Moore of Maryland has asked, in a rather nasty and provocative tone, that I ‘walk the streets of Maryland’ with him. I assume he is talking about out of control, Crime ridden, Baltimore?,” Trump wrote on his social media platform in response, saying he “will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime,” if the governor “needs help.”
The president’s concern with the city’s crime rate comes as the mayor of Baltimore announced “historic reductions in violent crime” last month for the first half of 2025, in addition to citing the lowest homicide rate in 50 years.
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
