Pence urges conservative reset as McCain warns of global hunger crisis

Pence used his Face the Nation appearance to argue that the Republican Party needs to reclaim a familiar governing creed: limited government, free markets, traditional moral values and an unapologetically pro-life stance. Promoting his new book, What Conservatives Believe: Rediscovering the Conservative Conscience, the former vice president said the party’s populist wing has become more defined by grievance than by a positive conservative agenda, sharpening a split that has lingered since his break with Donald Trump.

The interview landed as Pence continues to define his place inside a Republican Party still pulled between Trump-era populism and an older movement conservatism. Pence’s argument was less about personality than about direction, framing the party’s future around economic restraint, moral language and a return to ideas he said had been pushed aside. In a political moment shaped by anger and loyalty tests, Pence is making the case that the GOP should again sell itself as a philosophy of governance, not just opposition.

Cindy McCain offered a far starker picture from Rome, where the World Food Programme executive director warned that the humanitarian system is straining under a record level of need. In an interview taped May 29 and aired May 31, McCain said WFP had received only about half the money it needs in 2026, a gap she tied to both U.S. cuts and a broader global pullback in aid. She warned that, unless governments, corporations and the private sector step in, the world could face several more famines.

The numbers behind that warning are severe. WFP’s 2026 Global Outlook says 318 million people face acute hunger, including 41 million at Emergency levels or worse. It says two famines have been confirmed in Gaza and parts of Sudan, and that conflict drives 69 percent of hunger worldwide. Those figures point to a crisis that is no longer confined to one region or one emergency, but is spreading across conflict zones where food systems, health care and civilian protections are breaking down at once.

McCain also highlighted the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where emergency responders are active amid Ebola response efforts and where severe food insecurity is deepening. WFP says it has supported 1.3 million people in eastern Congo since January 2026, even as funding gaps force reductions in assistance. The country hosts more than 518,000 refugees and asylum seekers, adding pressure to a system already under strain. Since taking office on April 5, 2023, McCain has made the case that hunger is now a geopolitical issue as much as a humanitarian one, and her warning on Face the Nation underscored how quickly the global safety net is fraying.