Former President Donald Trump again attacked his onetime vice president, Mike Pence, for not blocking certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.
What You Need To Know
- Former President Donald Trump again attacked his onetime vice president, Mike Pence, for not blocking certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election
- Trump repeated his grievances about Pence during an interview on comedian Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant” podcast, which was posted Wednesday
- “He couldn’t cross the line of doing what was right, in my opinion,” the former president said.
- Pence believed he did not have the authority to unilaterally determine which votes should not be counted
Trump repeated his grievances about Pence during an interview on comedian Andrew Schulz’s “Flagrant” podcast, which was posted Wednesday.
“Well, it’s a shame because he and I had a very good relationship,” Trump said.
“He couldn’t cross the line of doing what was right, in my opinion,” the former president continued. “Some people would disagree with that, but he had the right to go and put them before the legislatures and have them reassessed because they found out a lot of bad things.”
Trump also said he thinks Pence is a “good man” but wishes “he would have had the stamina, maybe courage, and maybe both to go further.”
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris' campaign blasted Trump’s remarks.
“Donald Trump’s top priority for his second term is terrifyingly simple: get rid of anyone who might dare stand up to him, and make sure there is no one left to do what Mike Pence did – protect the Constitution, preserve our democracy, and put our country first,” spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “It’s why he’s surrounding himself with loyalists who will encourage his worst instincts and leave him unchecked, allowing him to bulldoze our democracy and ‘terminate’ our Constitution.”
Federal investigators have said that Trump pressured Pence to reject the results from certain states in which the Republican and his allies claimed there was widespread election fraud, despite more than 60 losses in court cases challenging the outcome and assertions from election and law-enforcement officials that there was no evidence to support the claims.
Pence, whose role in overseeing the certification of Electoral College votes was largely ceremonial, refused to go along with the plan, telling Congress in a letter that he did not have the authority to unilaterally determine which votes should not be counted.
Trump wrote on social media on Jan. 6, 2021, that the Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” Soon after, Trump supporters outside the Capitol were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!”, video shows.
Pence and members of Congress were rushed to secure locations as the mob breached the building.
Trump argued in the interview that Congress passing the Electoral Count Reform Act in 2022 was proof he was right that Pence could have rejected the election results. Legal experts widely believed the vice president did not have such power, but lawmakers, with bipartisan support, passed the bill to clarify the vice president’s role and prevent any similar attempts in the future.
Pence, who ran for the Republican nomination against Trump this election, said in August he would not endorse his former boss.
“I cannot endorse President Trump’s continuing assertion that I should have set aside my oath to support and defend the Constitution and acted in a way that would have overturned the election in January of 2021,” he added at a conservative convention.
The topic of Jan. 6 has received renewed attention since Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance refused to say in last week’s debate against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, that Trump lost the 2020 election.