Former Vice President Mike Pence in a CNN town hall Wednesday declined to endorse former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and left the door open for him to seek the Republican nomination himself.
Speaking a day after the release of his memoir, “So Help Me God,” Pence was mostly coy when discussing his own plans while touting the Trump administration’s policy agenda.
But Pence was more direct when asked about the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol. The former vice president called it “the hardest day of my public life.”
Pence also revealed more about his personal feelings about that day and his views on the state of American politics in the wake of a presidency that he said did not end well.
Here are some food from the town hall:
Asked about Trump’s new presidential campaign, which he announced Tuesday, Pence said he believes there will be “better options” on the ballot in two years.
Pence left open the possibility that one of those preferred choices, as he saw it, would be him.
“I’ll keep you posted,” Pence told CNN’s Jake Tapper, who moderated the event.
Moments earlier, facing Trump’s question, Pence said: “I think it’s time for new leadership in this country that will unite us around our highest ideals.”
Pressed by Tapper about his future, Pence replied, “There might be someone else in this contest that I would prefer.”
It was, Pence said, “the hardest day of my public life.”
“I thought it was important, as vice president, to offer my advice and counsel to the president in confidence. And we did,” Pence said of his role that day, when Trump and other allies of the then-president tried to persuade him to launch an unconstitutional effort to block or overturn the election results.
Pence said his decision to ignore Trump’s pleas was rooted in something deeper than their relationship.
“I had a higher faith, and that was in God and the Constitution. And that’s what started the confrontation that would take place on January 6th because I was sworn to the Constitution of the United States,” Pence said.
Breaking with the man who handpicked him ahead of the 2016 election and elevated him to a whisper in the Oval Office “was difficult,” Pence said.
“But I will always believe,” he added, “that we did our duty that day in upholding the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this country and the peaceful transfer of power.”
In the days that followed, Pence said, he was upset with Trump over the then-president’s role in the deadly uprising.
“The president’s words and tweet that day were reckless,” Pence said. “They put my family and all the people in the Capitol at risk.”
But Pence also shut down any speculation about whether he will testify before the House Select Committee to investigate on Jan. 6, saying “Congress has no right to my testimony.” He said it would set a “terrible precedent” for a congressional committee to call a vice president to discuss discussions at the White House, arguing it would violate the separation of powers and “erode the dynamic” between the president and vice president.
After CNN played footage of Jan. 6 rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” the former vice president said he was sorry to see the images again, but in the moment “it made me angry.”
Pence, who moved to a safe location as the Capitol was breached, said he told the Secret Service he would not leave, insisting he would remain in place, in part because he did not want the mob to see his motorcade speeding away.
“But frankly, when I saw those images and when I read a tweet that President Trump put out saying that I didn’t have the courage at that time, it made me very angry,” Pence said. But, he added, “I didn’t have time for that.”
After years of standing by Trump through various scandals and crises — and also benefiting from the former president’s political rise — Pence said he had decided that, in this fight, they would take opposite sides.
“The president had decided at that moment to be part of the problem,” said Pence, who told Tapper he was “determined to be part of the solution.”
Pence then discussed bringing the Republican and Democratic leadership of the House and Senate together in a conference call, asking Pentagon and Justice Department officials to “raise additional resources” to help Capitol police officers.
Congress eventually reconvened that same day and, after Republicans challenged the count, finally confirmed Biden as the next president.
“We have shown the American people and the world the strength of our institutions (and) the resilience of our democracy,” Pence said. “But these memories, these images will always be with me.”
Pence described in vivid detail his meetings with Trump in the days after the Capitol riot. When he first saw Trump at the White House a few days after Jan. 6, he said the then-president immediately asked about his family and if they were OK.
While it was at odds with public perceptions of Trump, Pence said, he believed Trump was “deeply remorseful at the time.”
“I could tell he was saddened by what had happened,” Pence said. “I encouraged him to pray. He told me many times that he was a believer and I told him to turn to Jesus hoping that he would find comfort there – and that I was finding at that moment.”
In the days that followed, Pence said he saw Trump for another meeting and that the president was still “down.” After they finished talking about administration work, Pence said, “I reminded him that I was praying for him,” and Trump was “dismissive about it.”
“As our meeting came to a close, I stood up,” Pence said. “I looked at him and said, I guess there’s only two things we’ll probably never agree on. And he looked up and said, ‘What?'”
“I reported on my role on January 6,” Pence said. “And then I said, ‘I will never stop praying for you.’
“He smiled faintly and said, “Right. Don’t ever change.” And we parted as amicably as we could in the wake of these events.”
Lamenting the Republicans’ underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterm elections, Pence noted that candidates who talked about the future outnumbered those who focused more on “decolonizing the past.”
“And I expect that will be considered by Republicans,” Pence said.
Asked why, then, he chose to campaign alongside election naysayers — including GOP Senate candidates Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and Blake Masters in Arizona, who both lost last week — Pence said the party loyalty trumped other concerns.
“I’ve often said, ‘I’m a Christian, a conservative and a Republican — in that order. But I’m a Republican,” Pence said, “and once the Republican voters chose their nominees, I went out and traveled to 35 states in the last year and a half to see if we could elect a Republican majority in the House, in the Senate. elect Republican governors across the country.”
Pence added that his appearance on the stump with a candidate “did not mean, as it has not meant in the past, that I agree with every statement or every position that the candidates that I support in the Republican Party have taken.”
He also tried to draw a false equivalency between Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020 and Hillary Clinton’s comments after 2016, noting that she said “Donald Trump has not been a legitimate president for years.”
“I think there’s been too much questioning of the election, not just in 2020 but in 2016,” he said.
Pence has very carefully crafted his explanation of the events leading up to Jan. 6, during that day’s attack on Capitol Hill and in his conversations with Trump afterward — and he hasn’t deviated from that explanation.
As he has unfolded these events, Pence’s comments have been almost identical in his book, at a CNN town hall and in interviews with other news networks in recent days.
He had made it clear what he was willing to say. Among the key points: That Trump listened to the wrong lawyers ahead of Jan. 6. that he was “angry” watching the attack on the Capitol. that she left Trump with a pledge to continue to pray for him; and that the two are no longer on speaking terms.
But it’s equally clear where Pence won’t go: He won’t reveal any simmering displeasure with Trump, saying his faith demands forgiveness. He won’t fully blame Republicans for shaking up the party’s base with lies about voter fraud. It will not legitimize the work of the House committee investigating the events surrounding that day.
Pence’s slow, measured delivery of a coherent message is a trait that dates back to his days as a self-proclaimed “Rush Limbaugh on decaf” conservative talk radio host in Indiana.
It’s an approach that has remained consistent throughout his political career, including 12 years in the House and four years as governor of Indiana. Pence often repeats almost the same message – line for line,…
