Mike Pence & Charlotte Pence Bond: Go Home for Dinner

Hey, welcome back, everyone.

Brian Kilmeade Show here. My privilege to have in studio, Mike Pence, and more importantly, Charlotte Pence Bond, authors of a brand new book, Go Home for Dinner, advice on how faith makes a family and family makes a life. Welcome. Thanks for doing this book and thanks for coming in, guys.

Appreciate seeing you. Who's I deal with? Charlotte, is this your idea? No.

He came to me and kind of just wanted to talk about it and talk about potentially doing this together. But it was really all him. Yeah, it's his.

Yeah, I signed it. It was my daughter's very modest. She actually has a children's bestseller under her belt. She wrote a book about our families. You know about that. You're one of my favorite authors.

Thank you very much. I know you follow these things closely. But when I signed a two book deal, the way it happened was a friend a couple years ago said, you know, I'm really interested in your autobiography.

I look forward to reading that. I like politics. But he said, the story I really want to read is how do you have a family like yours living the crazy life in politics that you've lived at all these different levels?

Never off. And that was where Go Home for Dinner was born. It was we thought it would be an opportunity to really write a book that says, here's how we took our Christian faith. Here's how we put those principles into practice. Here's how we made a priority for our family.

And I think that's the story of my father and my daughter who lived all those days was was a real joy for sure. When did your dad start getting in office your whole life. He's been in office.

No, but a lot of it. And when I was 6, he ran for Congress. The third time for him for some for us as kids. So really. Yeah.

I mean, he was in Congress when I was first through 12th grade and then governor and then vice president. So it's been it's been a long time. You have to be in two places. Right. Two places at once.

Literally, we're going to be in two places. when you're home, you got to work and you're there, you got to work. So did your dad have dinner with you? Yeah, he did.

It's not just a good title. He really was home for dinner and we would go into the Capitol building to have dinner with him sometimes. But he really made an effort to be home for dinner. We moved to Washington, D.C., the Washington, D.C. area when he was in Congress so that we could be near to him so he could be at violin recitals and soccer games and things like that. And he really, he really was.

It really, you know, for us, it was all about making a decision to make a priority for your family. You know, people, the title was also born back when I was in Congress, back when we first met Brian. People would sometimes come up to me and say, you know, where do you see yourself in five years? It's kind of a, you know, it is implied flattery.

And I would always respond the same way. I'd say home for dinner because I look, I never need to be motivated to work hard. I like to work hard.

I love to see how can I make a difference in the world? But the decision to shut off the computer, to get in the car, get harder and harder and sit down, put, you know, as we say in the book, put the phone in the dish and sit down and and listen to your kids and reconnect with your family on a regular basis. You know, we say that a lot of people in the busy world we live in today can't can't be home for dinner every day. But there's a way that you can make time on a regular basis to spend time as a family.

And I think it's a key to really strengthening our nation. You feel good about putting this together? How about you? How about the rest of your family?

Oh, yes, he is. It's been great. It's been a great memory, really. I had my first child in February, so that was a big part of this.

We were doing the book on Zoom sessions and she was usually sleeping, you know, on me while we were working on it. And it was a good chance for me to learn about putting your family first. I had to live out the principles in the book while we were working on it because I was a parent and I hadn't been a parent before and I had to put the computer away and spend time with her and put her first.

And so that was really, really impactful for me to learn at the same time. And it's not, like my dad said, it's not just about being there for dinner. It's about mentally being present too, which is hard, getting harder and harder.

And so we even talk about that. We talk about strategies for that and how you can make sure that your family knows you want to be with them and you're engaged with them. We really tried to say these are things that, you know, from the time I put my faith in Jesus Christ, I wanted a Christ-centered home. Karen and I developed our marriage around our faith, but it's also about being really practical about trying to, you know, build levees around your marriage. You know, some of the decisions Karen and I made about our marriage got a lot of attention when I was vice president, a lot more than I ever expected. But as I travel across the country, I will not go have lunch with another woman.

Just not not dine alone with a woman that's not my wife. It was a promise we made to each other when we first got married. But that's what in the book we say there were a lot of ways you can build levees around your marriage and around those most important relationships in your life. And but, you know, we also just we also try and be transparent about lessons learned along the way. And my hope is that the book is an encouragement because the truth is the American family is in a lot of trouble right now.

Brian, I mean, you speak about that often. The truth is that in many ways, marriage and the traditional family are in freefall in this country. And so as all of us think in these anxious times about what we can do to turn America around, you know, our message at the end is, you know, save your family, save America, go home for dinner. Yeah, it's amazing, too, because I'm getting all these emails now with people with their pronouns.

And I'm thinking to myself, what is this about? How hard was the family decision to stop running for president? You know, I was at a personal decision. It was well for Karen and I felt called to run. You know, we spent two years traveling around the country after we left office.

And I spent some time with you here in this studio when my first book came out. And we were just determined to step forward and offer our own vision of leadership and a fresh start for the country. But I'll be honest with you, Brian, it was harder to end our campaign and in my heart and in my mind than it was to start it, because I'm a I'm a competitive person of somebody that thinks, you know, just keep fighting. But as we reflected on it as a family, as we talked about it, we just you know, the Bible says there's a time for every purpose under heaven. And it became clear to us, this is not my time. And so we made the decision to to step away. And while we were disappointed, we have peace about it.

Charlie, were you in on the decision? You know, my parents, they take our advice a lot or they'll listen to our advice, ask our advice. And it's always a family thing that we're doing. Yeah. I mean, I would say I I've always kind of been in a lot of positions.

I have a I have a chapter in in the book about January 6th that I write because I was there. And so I've kind of been around for some of these big moments and as of my siblings, of course. But yeah, I mean, it's you know, it's it's it's a it's an interesting world in politics right now. And I I'm frustrated with it. I think a lot of people are.

But, you know, I support my parents, of course. Is Trump a word that's not brought up in your house these days? It's not not brought up.

I mean, we're as interested in public affairs as anybody. But Charlotte, again, she's being modest back on the campaign in 2016. Charlotte literally traveled one hundred and thirty out of one hundred and thirty two days with us. She was in a gap time in her own education and her brother and sister said somebody's got to be there to watch mom and dad. So she ended up writing a book entitled Where You Go, Life Lessons from My Father, all about the campaign. And the last chapter of this book, Go Home for Dinner, is simply entitled Stay because, well, well, I've gotten a lot of attention and frankly, a lot of encouragement from people around the country that we stayed at our post on January 6th and we finished our work. A lot of people don't know that that my wife, Karen, and my daughter, Charlotte, were there at the Capitol and they also refused to leave. They they insisted on staying. They were there till four in the morning. And she writes about that in a very compelling way. But I love the the chapter that she wrote because it says what whatever's whatever's coming at you and at your family.

The first lesson is stay, stay together and find your way through it together. So, Mr. Vice President, that day, was that the armed guard that ended up shooting the woman? Were they watching you? No, not my Secret Service detail was connected with me. And, you know, those tragic events, I think, were separate, involved Capitol Hill police and still heartbreaking to think of the loss of life, the injury to police officers that took place.

Ashley Babbitt. Yeah. And but that was in your that was in your Secret Service. It was an art. We were you know, I was evacuated from the floor of the Senate that day. And as I write about in my previous book at some length and Charlotte writes about it in her chapter of this book, we were evacuated to a small office just off the Senate chamber. But as Charlotte recounts, I was I didn't want to leave that office next to the Senate chamber. And the Secret Service was telling me again and again, we've got to move you out of here.

And I looked at them at one point and I said, you're not hearing me. I'm not leaving. I was just absolutely determined in my mind to stay at my post, do my job. And it was Charlotte that intervened with the Secret Service agents said, is there is there somewhere else we could go in the Capitol other than right here? And that's all trying to find a compromise because I was I knew he wasn't going to leave. And I knew the Secret Service needed him to leave. And so he wanted to stay at the Capitol building. So I just asked, is there somewhere at the Capitol that we can go that you guys know we would be happy with and we would be safe? And so there was.

And so they they took us down to the loading dock where we stayed the rest of the day. So you're out there campaigning. You said almost everything was positive. Oh, it was a great experience. You know, I love what I just talked to Tim Scott yesterday, who also went through a tough decision to suspend his campaign. He's an extraordinary American and a great friend of mine. But I love what he said on Fox News, a Trey Gowdy show where he said anybody that wants to get a higher opinion of this country should run for president because the our politics are really divided right now. But you get out among the American people and whether they're for you or against you, people are unfailingly gracious and encouraging.

They appreciate your willingness to step forward. And with just a few exceptions, we had a we had a terrific experience on the campaign. So he said this is not because it was clear this is not my time. It's not saying down the line he's not going to run again.

Right. Have you thought the same thing because you're young enough? Have you thought this just maybe this is not my time? Well, our conviction was that that this was not our moment.

This was not our time. But we learned a long time ago never to limit God. But, you know, it's a real blessing for me that the that that departing from the campaign trail and from active politics coincided with the long planned release of a book about what matters most to us. You know, if anybody that knows the Pences knows that our faith in Christ, our family is the most important thing in our life.

And, you know, my hope is that that maybe as we begin a new season in our life, that people gain some inspiration and, you know, whatever the Lord has for us, my aspiration will always be to go home for dinner. How surprised are you that President Trump is leading right now by 2030 points in almost every state? You know, be honest with you, when you look at the failed policies of President Joe Biden at home and abroad, the way he's weakened to this country, I understand people's enthusiasm for the record of our administration, for the president's record.

I get it. I mean, America was more secure. It was more prosperous and the world was more at peace during our administration. I'm proud of the role I played in all of that. But in in many respects, I think I think that some of the resilience of the former president's support is a reflective of how concerned people are about the direction of country. I share that concern.

That was it was where I ran for president. And while in the days ahead, we're going to be thinking and praying deeply about what role we might play in helping to turn this country around. I will take a time out, talk a little bit more with the vice president and his lovely daughter, Charlotte Pence Bond.

The name of the book is Go Home for Dinner. A few more minutes with Mike Pence in just a moment. You listen to the Brian Kilmeade show. I'm Dana Perino. Join me for my brand new podcast, Perino on Politics, as we analyze the twenty twenty four election cycle. Make sure you subscribe to this series on Fox News podcast dot com or wherever you download podcasts and leave me a rating and review. Radio that makes you think this is the Brian Kilmeade show.

We're back. Mike Pence and Charlotte Pence Bond are here and their book is called Go Home for Dinner. And the vice president just made a big decision to not run to suspend his campaign. Him, Scott, over the weekend surprised Trey Gowdy.

He did not know to spend his campaign. This vice president, you said everyone's coming up to you asking for an endorsement. Have you thought about it? Well, you know, we're taking time mostly to focus on our family and our moving our life forward. I told people the only thing harder than suspending our campaign would have been if we just never tried. I just as I said when I announced back in June, Brian, I think this country is in a lot of trouble. I think this is a moment where all of us have the ability to make a difference, have an obligation to try. And and so I'm I'm glad we ran. But now as we move forward, we're excited about this book because it gives us a chance to talk at a more and more personal level with the American people. People have oftentimes come up to us and let us know they're praying for us and encouraged by us. And I hope in this book that with the great work my daughter did on it with me, that the people will see that it's it's it's our faith in Jesus Christ. It's really practically putting our family first, going home for dinner.

That's made it possible for us to serve in the way we have showed. How did you feel about Nikki Haley's daughter being brought up in this? Do you do it in the debate last time? She's 27. And they said, your daughter's on TikTok. And other people say, well, you know, keep kids out of this. But when you were 20 or your kid, how did you feel about that? I think generally I I I don't like people bringing up other people's kids. I think if people if kids get involved, then it's fair game.

You know, people ask me a lot. You know, is it hard to see your dad talked about negatively? And I mean, I'm a person and a daughter. So I don't like that.

But I'm also not a victim. You know, I think that we were raised that way. We're raised to, you know, understand that if you're in public life, you're going to be, you know, potentially talked about in a negative way. But that's my dad says that's what freedom looks like.

It means that people can say whatever they want. But I think talking about kids, if if if a if a kid isn't actively putting themselves in the political sphere, I think you should leave them out of it. Just out of respect. Absolutely. And just real quick, how do you feel about your your husband in the military knowing that you have the Eisenhower or you how how how many how many people are actually deployed right now?

Right. I mean, I you know, you always know that you could be deployed as active duty. And then, of course, reservists know that, too.

I think that I think I think the everyone's watching very closely. And I think that, you know, of course, it becomes more real maybe when you have members of the military and your family. But with your brother, too. Yeah. And with my brother as well.

But but I think that at the end of the day, you you go into the military to serve and you understand that you could be called upon any time to do that. Yeah. In fact, her husband, a lot of your listeners may not know her. We're awfully proud of Charlotte. She's a best selling author. And I hope she is again with this book, frankly, Home for Dinner is the name of it.

Her husband, her husband's an F-18 pilot and a top gun pilot. And we couldn't be more proud of him. Mr. Vice President, can you ever see yourself last question endorsing the president if he gets the now the former president, your former running mate, if he gets the nomination? You know, with regard to any endorsements, I just tell you, we're just going to take a step back and we're going to listen and we're going to reflect and and we're going to pray because I love this country and America is better than we are today. And I'm determined to do my part, whatever that is, to get us to turn this country around.

Yeah. My hunch, you'll be in an administration or you'll be running again. Great to see you guys. Congratulations on go home for dinner. Mike Pence and Charlie Pence. But Charlotte Pence put it out and they got a great message. Thanks so much for making time for us.