Former vice president Mike Pence was greeted with boos and a smattering of applause after taking the stage at the National Rifle Association’s annual conference in his home state of Indiana.
“I love you, too,” he joked in response.
Later in his remarks, after calling his term as vice president under Donald Trump the greatest honour of his life, one person loudly shouted “never again”.
His reception at the event was in sharp contrast to that for the former president, who pressured Mr Pence to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election while overseeing a joint session of Congress on 6 January 2021 as a mob of Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the halls of the US Capitol.
“I hope you gave Pence a good, warm approval,” Mr Trump said in his remarks at the NRA-ILA’s event on 14 April. “No, because he is a nice man, if you want to really know the truth, he is. He’s a good man. And I heard it was very rough.”
Mr Pence, who ultimately refused to join the former president’s attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, is weighing a run for the GOP nomination for president in 2024. Mr Trump remains the frontrunner while he continues to push a baseless narrative that the election was stolen from him.
The former vice president, who served as governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, has repeatedly condemned Mr Trump’s “reckless” rhetoric that fuelled the attack at the Capitol.
“President Trump was wrong,” Mr Pence said last month. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
At the NRA event, prospective 2024 candidates relied on familiar tropes alleging Democratic overreach on gun control and committed themselves to defending the powerful firearm lobby and Second Amendment protections.
Both Mr Trump and Mr Pence also invoked dangerous rhetoric against transgender Americans, with the former vice president baselessly calling the assailant responsible for the mass shooting in Nashville a “trans activist”.
Mr Pence, a staunch opponent of abortion rights, called for accelerating the executions of mass shooters, saying that “justice delayed is justice denied.”
“I believe the time has come to institute a federal death penalty statute with accelerated appeal to ensure that those who engage in mass shootings face execution in months, not years,” he said.
