Pence praises Trump's 'example of leadership and perseverance' in commencement address

Vice President Pence speaks at Grove City College

Vice President Mike Pence gave the commencement address Saturday for Grove City College, a small, Christian school in Pennsylvania. His selection for the keynote was controversial at the conservative campus, where many current students and alumni worried his presence would be interpreted as an institutional endorsement of the Trump administration.

Pence's speech congratulated and encouraged graduates, focusing on a theme of leadership. "Remember now, people follow people they respect, so first and foremost you must aspire to be men and women of character," Pence said. "Servant leadership, not selfish ambition, must be the animating force of the career that lies before you," he continued, later praising "a friend of mine," President Trump, as an "example of leadership and perseverance."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.