In a forthcoming memoir about his tenure, former Vice President Mike Pence recounts a conversation he had with Donald Trump.   

  Here’s the key piece, from an excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday:   

  “Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and other Republicans had filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to declare that I had ‘sole authority and sole discretion’ to decide which electoral votes should be counted.  “I don’t want to see ‘Pence opposes Gohmert suit’ as a headline this morning,” the president said.  I told him I did object.  “If it gives you the power,” he asked, “why oppose it?”   

  “If it gives you power, why oppose it?”   

  If you had just one quote to understand Trump and how he views the world, that would be great.   

  The only thing that matters to Trump is power – and how to wield it.  He sees the world as a relentless struggle for power and control.  The winners are the people who seize power – no matter the cost.  There is no “right” in Trump’s worldview.  There’s only so much you can do – and who can try to stop you.   

  This is exactly how Trump ran his presidency.   

  “When someone is president of the United States, the power is complete and that’s how it should be,” he said in April 2020 about efforts to lift restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.   

  Trump has regularly treated government as his personal game.  He was frustrated when the Justice Department refused to pursue his personal vendettas.  He referred to “my army” and “my generals.”   

  In short: The presidency was a major power trip for someone who spent his life seeking to acquire and maintain just that kind of power.   

  This brings us back to the lead until January 6, 2021 and the pressure Trump was putting on Pence.   

  For Trump, the only issue was whether anyone said Pence had the power to overturn the Electoral College count.  Not if Pence actually had that power under a little thing called the Constitution.   

  Marty Trump’s reaction to Pence’s insistence that he did not have the power to disrupt the election vote count from the book excerpt.   

  “You’re very honest,” Trump told Pence.  “Hundreds of thousands will hate your guts.  … People will think you’re stupid.”   

  See, in Trump’s view, people who don’t seize power when the opportunity presents themselves are not smart.  They are puffs that shrewd people take advantage of – people like Trump.   

  Of course, the peaceful transfer of power in a democracy is not the same thing as some power play in the corporate world.  The stakes are infinitely higher.   

  Trump never seemed to grasp this fact.