--- title: Mike Pence at CPAC: Not Sorry for Sitting for North Korea description: Vice President Mike Pence at CPAC responded to criticism of his choice to ignore the North Korean Olympic delegation and sit. canonical: https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-22T17:14:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:07.529Z article:section: Politics og:title: No, Mike Pence Isn't Sorry for Sitting for North Korea During the Olympics og:description: "The United States of America doesn't stand with murderous dictatorships" og:url: https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96ea54730a6fabbe/69892890e76ad288d2631248/mike-pence-cpac.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5568 og:image:height: 3132 og:image:alt: Vice President Mike Pence at CPAC og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: No, Mike Pence Isn't Sorry for Sitting for North Korea During the Olympics twitter:description: "The United States of America doesn't stand with murderous dictatorships" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96ea54730a6fabbe/69892890e76ad288d2631248/mike-pence-cpac.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # No, Mike Pence Isn't Sorry for Sitting for North Korea During the Olympics > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre Speaks About Gun Control At CPAC [Watch (HLS stream): NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre Speaks About Gun Control At CPAC](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/i2VT5Kw0.m3u8) (1:40)  _Published 2018-02-22. Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday that politicians and the media are exploiting the deadly Florida school shooting to expand gun control._  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Feb 22, 2018 5:14 PM UTC  Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor in Oxen Hill, Maryland on February 22, 2018 Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor in Oxen Hill, Maryland on February 22, 2018 JIM WATSON - AFP/Getty Images  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Feb 22, 2018 5:14 PM UTC Vice President Mike Pence issued an impassioned condemnation of North Korea at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday in response to criticism of his choice to ignore the North Korean Olympic delegation and sit during the country’s national anthem. “The United States of America doesn’t stand with murderous dictatorships, we stand up to murderous dictatorships,” Pence told the crowd at CPAC. “We will keep standing strong until North Korea stops threatening our country, our allies or until they abandon their nuclear and ballistic missiles once and for all.”  Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, February 24, 2018. Mark Peterson—Redux for TIME Pence attracted media spotlight as the head of the U.S. delegation to the Olympics in Pyeongchang where he sat only a few feet away from the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un during the opening ceremonies but did not acknowledge her. The U.S. has kept a hardline against the country’s aggressive nuclear weapons programs even as key U.S. ally South Korea has pursued a thawing relations. North and South Korean athletes [marched under the same flag](http://time.com/5105667/north-and-south-koreas-olympic-teams-will-march-under-the-same-flag-at-opening-ceremony/) at this year’s Olympics for the first time since 2006. Pence’s CPAC address recounted what he described as a laundry list of accomplishments from the Trump administration’s first year in office including tax reform, a changed atmosphere for law enforcement and regulatory rollback, among other things. “2017 was the most consequential year in the history of the conservative movement,” he said. Pence’s address followed a [speech](http://time.com/5169511/nra-wayne-lapierre-cpac-speech/) from National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre where the pro-gun advocate came out swinging in his first public remarks since a school shooting in Florida killed 17 people last week. For his part, Pence promised action from the White House to protect students and schools in the form of “American solutions to confront and end this evil in our time.” ## Transcript Just a week ago, we were all horrified by another terrible tragedy at an American school. Each and every member of the National Rifle Association mourns the loss of the innocent, and continues to keep their families, and that community In our prayers. We share a goal of safe schools, safe neighborhoods, and a safe country. It's not a safety issue, it's a political issue. They care more about control and more of it. Their goal is to eliminate the second amendment. Their solution is to make you, all of you, less free. They wanna sweep right under the carpet the failure of school security, the failure of family, the failure of America's mental health system. And even the unbelievable failure of the FBI. Do we really love our money and our celebrities more than we love our children? No. Can we answer that question honestly? Any of us, can we answer that question honestly. Knowing that we surround and protect so much with armed security. While we drop our kids off at schools that are so- called gun- free zones that are wide- open targets for any crazy madmen, bent on evil, to come there first. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/"},"headline":"No, Mike Pence Isn't Sorry for Sitting for North Korea During the Olympics","datePublished":"2018-02-22T17:14:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:42:07.529Z","description":"Vice President Mike Pence at CPAC responded to criticism of his choice to ignore the North Korean Olympic delegation and sit.","url":"https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96ea54730a6fabbe/69892890e76ad288d2631248/mike-pence-cpac.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96ea54730a6fabbe/69892890e76ad288d2631248/mike-pence-cpac.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Vice President Mike Pence at CPAC","caption":"Vice President Mike Pence at CPAC","creditText":"JIM WATSON - AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/","name":"No, Mike Pence Isn't Sorry for Sitting for North Korea During the Olympics"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre Speaks About Gun Control At CPAC","description":"Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday that politicians and the media are exploiting the deadly Florida school shooting to expand gun control.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/i2VT5Kw0/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-02-22T16:52:14.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/i2VT5Kw0.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/","duration":"PT1M40S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5170578/mike-pence-cpac-north-korea-olympics/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```