Republican group calls for ‘President Pence’ amid impeachment trial

A GOP group headed by former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol is calling on the Senate to oust President Trump and confirm Vice President Pence as his successor.

In a press release, Defending Democracy Together spokesman Tim Miller highlighted the creation of presidentpence.com, a website that encourages visitors to show support for Pence, whom the site describes as a “lifelong conservative Republican” who “doesn’t grab women by … anything.”

An ad released alongside the website adds that Pence doesn’t “brag about sexually assaulting women.”

“President Trump’s defenders have endlessly repeated the preposterous claim that impeaching and removing a president undoes an election, as if that weird inauguration and the midterm elections where Republicans got throttled never happened,” Miller said.

“Removing the President doesn’t overturn the election. It won’t put Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi in the White House. Instead it will give us President Mike Pence. And while Pence isn’t the president of anyone’s dreams, he isn’t Donald Trump either. So there’s that,” he continued.

Kristol, one of the president’s “Never Trump” conservative critics, has also worked to support 2020 primary challengers to Trump, a move that has earned little support among mainstream Republicans.

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (Ill.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld are both seeking to prise the GOP nomination from Trump, but several state Republicans parties have moved to make Trump the only candidate on their ballot.

Updated at 3:00 p.m. 1/24/2020