Mike Pence was not fearful as he was evacuated from the Senate floor and whisked into hiding with his family members after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot erupted — instead, he felt “angry,” the former vice president wrote in a new book.
In a forthcoming memoir, So Help Me God, Pence details his journey through faith and how his morals played into his role as vice president. However, in the last few chapters, Pence recalls his experience on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters breached the Capitol building as Congress met to certify the victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
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“I was angry at what I saw, how it desecrated the seat of our democracy and dishonored the patriotism of millions of our supporters, who would never do such a thing here or anywhere else,” Pence wrote, according to a copy of the book obtained by Axios. “To see fellow Americans ransacking the Capitol left me with a simmering indignation and the thought: Not here, not this. … Not in America.”
The book details Pence’s perspective during the Capitol riot, offering previously unreported details from that day. Pence was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to preside over the counting of electoral votes, facing pressure from former President Donald Trump and several of his supporters to send the results back to certain states.
However, the former vice president refused, sending a letter to Congress that said he did not have the power to reject Electoral College votes, striking a blow to Trump’s hopes of remaining in the White House.
After rioters breached the Capitol, Pence was escorted to his ceremonial office before being evacuated to an underground loading dock. At one point, rioters were just 40 feet away from the vice president as they descended on the Capitol, according to testimony shared with the Jan. 6 committee.
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Although some of the rioters were threatening Trump’s vice president, chanting “hang Mike Pence,” Pence has downplayed the riot as “one day in January,” critiquing the media’s focus on it as a way to distract from the Biden administration’s “failed agenda.”
Much of Pence’s memoir details his experience as vice president and his behind-the-scenes work to promote policies on abortion, national security, and more. So Help Me God is set to be released on Nov. 15.
