Donald Trump has been accused of appeasing hostile foreign powers after Hamas launched sweeping raids into Israel that left more than 600 dead.
Speaking in Iowa on Saturday, Mr Pence called out the “voices of appeasement like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis that I believe have run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world.”
“This is ... what happens when you have leaders in the Republican Party signaling retreat on the world stage,” Mr Pence said.
Mr Trump joined other top Republicans in blaming the deadliest attacks in Israeli history on the Biden administration’s deal to unfreeze $6bn in frozen oil profits that were released to Iran in August in exchange for the release of five American prisoners.
The White House has labelled the claims are false, as no taxpayer money was involved in the Iran deal, none of the $6bn had been spent yet, and that the funds could only be used by private actors to “provably buy food and medicine”.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump was roundly denounced by his niece Mary Trump for allegedly leaking Israeli national security secrets to Vladimir Putin while he was president.