Donald Trump's new running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, holds a few unconventional views, according to The New York Times.
"Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill," he wrote on his old Mike Pence for Congress website in 1998, BuzzFeed first reported more than a year ago.
He warned his readers that the Food and Drug Administration's tobacco regulation is an action of "big government," and that a government large "enough to go after smokers is big enough to go after you," Pence said on his website, according to BuzzFeed.
"Global warming is a myth," "[Bill] Clinton must be impeached" for a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky and "George Washington was a Republican" round out the list of Pence's old op-eds.
Pence, who often says he is "a Christian, conservative and a Republican, in that order" has opposed his party a few times. He refused to support GOP programs like No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, according to the Times.
His most contested decision as governor was approving a 2015 law that could have made it easier for religious conservatives to refuse their services to same-sex couples, the newspaper said. The law was ultimately revised.
"Mike sees himself as a champion of a very culturally conservative set of values that represent small-town Middle America. He sees his role as protecting them," Leslie Lenkowsky, who has known the governor for two decades, told the Times.
CNBC has reached out to Pence's office for comment.