Mike Pence files paperwork to enter 2024 president race, Dimon says he's not running for office

Former Vice President Mike Pence files paperwork to enter the 2024 presidential race, while JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says he is not running for political office this year. Yahoo Finance senior columnist Rick Newman breaks down the latest

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, it is official the former Vice President Mike Pence is running for president. And FEC filing shows he has signed the paperwork to go up against his former boss, Donald Trump, for the Republican vote. And here to tell us more is Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman. Rick, this is going to be an interesting one the, former vice president and the former president. We know the loyalty that's been baked in to former President Trump. Who do you think Mike Pence is going to be able to appeal to?

RICK NEWMAN: He appeals to evangelicals, which is why Donald Trump wanted him in the first place. That was the coalition Trump put together. The ticked-off white working class plus evangelicals is what helped him get elected. But I don't know how far Pence goes beyond that. And he's going to have a tough time obviously. He's got name recognition, which a lot of other Republican candidates are not going to have. But he's not Donald Trump.

And a lot of the analysis so far says that just as in 2016, the more Republicans jump into the race, the more it benefits Donald Trump, because Trump, obviously, the biggest name in the Republican Party still, he will get his votes. And then the rest of the candidates will split all the other votes. So it almost looks as if the more the better for Trump. And we're going to get more candidates coming this week and perhaps later this year.

SEANA SMITH: Well, Rick, one candidate that we're not going to get at least for now, it seems like, is JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon. He's saying that he doesn't have any intention run for president this time around. What do you make just of this announcement, the fact that Dimon is officially out of the race?

RICK NEWMAN: Smart move. Even though he's prestigious in the business community, I have trouble thinking of an American political party where he could plausibly win the nomination. I think most people think he would run as a Democrat if he were to run. He has associated himself more with the Democratic Party than the Republicans. But guess what? The Elizabeth Warren faction of the Democratic Party loathes [AUDIO OUT]

And the idea that the guy leading the biggest Wall Street bank could just waltz in and somehow get the Democratic nomination I think is far-fetched, whether he's running against an incumbent, such as President Biden, or somebody else. He couldn't really make it as a Republican either. And I think Jamie Dimon is smart enough to know this. So he's saving himself some embarrassment probably along the lines of what Mike Bloomberg faced when he was the well-known businessman, the rational businessman, who was going to come in and save the Democrats from themselves in 2020, and he completely face-planted. So Jamie Dimon doesn't want to do that.

I think if he wants anything, he wants to be Treasury Secretary someday. We'll see if he gets it.

AKIKO FUJITA: Rick, you know, what I find interesting about the story is that it wasn't Jamie Dimon on a personal level, but the bank that felt the need to put out the statement to say he's not running, because there have been so many voices on Wall Street urging him to run. What do you think that says about what's out there today and how Wall Street views this upcoming race, I mean, especially on the Republican side?

RICK NEWMAN: I think the statement by the bank was a statement by Jamie Dimon. I mean, the two are practically synonymous. He's been there so long. And he's the face of the bank obviously. I mean, let's remember how that started. He did an interview. I think it was with Bloomberg last week. And somebody just asked him, you know, a fairly straightforward question, do you have any interest in ever running for office? And he answered what I think honestly. And he said, yeah, it has crossed my mind. And then Bill Ackman, the hedge fund guy, put out a tweet, it basically saying, please run, Jamie, please. And that got a lot of attention, so people jumped on it.

So I think there was this a little bit of momentum among the Wall Street crowd for Jamie Dimon to run. And I think he just wanted to put that all to rest. And also, by the way, reassure everybody with a stake in JPMorgan that, no, he's not going to leave the bank within the next year to run for-- to run for president-- excuse me. That's a pretty important thing to clarify since he's really important to the leadership of that bank.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah. Even without Jamie Dimon's name, and you look at the Republican field, at least, shaping up to be a pretty crowded field already. Rick Newman, as always, thanks so much.