Former Vice President Mike Pence offered his most revealing look yet into the deterioration of his relationship with former President Donald Trump in an excerpt of his memoir released one day after the midterm elections.
The excerpt, titled My Last Days with Donald Trump and published midday Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, one day after voting concluded for midterm races, was adapted from Pence’s new book, So Help Me God, which is scheduled for release next Tuesday, Nov. 15. In it, the former vice president recounted his conversations with Trump and his election lawyers shortly after the 2020 election and the chaotic months that followed. The insights are Pence’s most revealing to date on what he experienced in the final months of the Trump administration.
Pence detailed how he supported the former president in filing legal challenges to the election results in certain states and pledged to GOP lawmakers that he would allow for all “properly submitted objections” to certifying President Joe Biden’s win through the Electoral Count Act to be “recognized and fully debated” in his capacity as president of the Senate. Still, he urged Trump to accept the results if those legal challenges failed.
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“I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Pence quoted Trump as saying during a conversation 13 days after the election.
In the weeks that followed, Trump placed considerable public pressure on Pence to refuse to certify Biden’s win on Jan. 6, when the vice president was to preside over a joint session of Congress to count electoral votes, but Pence stood firm that his role was merely ceremonial, and that the vice president had no power to challenge electoral votes to turn the race in their favor.
Addressing an “obscure article” Trump retweeted that “alluded to the theory that if all else failed, I could alter the outcome of the election on Jan. 6,” Pence said he showed the tweet to his wife, former second lady Karen Pence, “and rolled my eyes.”
Pence went on to recount, facing Trump’s ire after opposing a lawsuit, which was filed against the former vice president to try to force him not to certify the election results, from Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
“I don’t want to see ‘Pence Opposes Gohmert Suit’ as a headline this morning,” Pence quoted the then-president as saying after learning he would oppose the suit. “If it gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”
After being told by Pence that he did not believe he had that power under the Constitution, Trump replied: “You’re too honest. Hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts. … People are gonna think you’re stupid.”
The next day, Pence wrote, he instructed his chief of staff to issue a statement supporting lawmakers’ ability to bring certification objections under the Electoral Count Act. While Pence would not get behind efforts to overturn the 2020 results, he wanted to make it clear that he would allow all legal objections from his party to be heard on Jan. 6.
A headline was published that claimed the outgoing vice president welcomed challenges in order to overturn the election results eventually, which Pence said was popping up everywhere.
“When the president called me that morning, his mood had brightened,” Pence wrote, quoting Trump as telling him: “You have gone from very unpopular to popular! You can be a historic figure, but if you wimp out, you’re just another somebody.”
Trump was not the only one who badgered Pence to shift his position. The outgoing president worked with lawyer John Eastman to pressure his vice president into not performing his ceremonial role on Jan. 6. Pence noted Eastman himself wasn’t exactly a believer in the legal soundness of his own arguments.
“The president’s lawyers, including Mr. Eastman, were now requesting that I simply reject the electors,” Pence said of a Jan. 5 emergency Oval Office meeting. “I later learned that Mr. Eastman had conceded to my general counsel that rejecting electoral votes was a bad idea and any attempt to do so would be quickly overturned by a unanimous Supreme Court. This guy didn’t even believe what he was telling the president.”
Pence then revealed that he and the president spoke by phone the morning of Jan. 6, and Trump “laid into” him after hearing for the final time that his vice president would not honor his wishes, saying: “You’ll go down as a wimp. If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago!”
The outgoing vice president refused to leave the Capitol after rioters had breached the grounds and would not follow Secret Service agents’ demands that he evacuate. Eventually, he and all the lawmakers were able to return and certify Biden’s results.
Pence and Trump did not meet or speak again, according to the memoir, until five days after the riot. Trump asked Pence how he and his family were and asked if he was “scared” during the attack itself. The vice president replied that he was not scared but rather, “I was angry. You and I had our differences that day, Mr. President, and seeing those people tearing up the Capitol infuriated me.”
After Trump began defending the rioters, Pence told him that those who invaded the Capitol “might’ve been supporters, but they are not our movement.”
“For five years, we had both spoken to crowds of the most patriotic, law-abiding, God-fearing people in the country,” he added.
The two spoke for a final time on Jan. 14, one day after Trump had been impeached in the House of Representatives for a second time. Pence wrote that he stopped by the Oval Office to praise him for denouncing the violence at the Capitol and to tell him that he was “praying for him.”
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“Don’t bother,” Trump replied before going on to say, “It’s been fun,” as Pence stood up to leave. “A privilege, Mr. President,” Pence then said.
“I guess we will just have to disagree on two things,” Pence recalled saying before walking out the door. He then referenced their “disagreement about Jan. 6” before telling Trump: “I’m also never gonna stop praying for you.”
That made Trump smile, as recalled by Pence. “That’s right — don’t ever change,” Trump said.
