Trump Renews Attack On Mike Pence For Not Going ‘Further’ On January 6th To Help Him Stay In Power
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File
Former President Donald Trump joined comedian Andrew Schulz on his podcast for a 90-minute sit-down interview, which was released on Wednesday.
At one point during the lengthy conversation, Trump boasted that many of his past enemies in the GOP have now become his friends – citing his past primary opponents as an example.
Schulz then asked Trump about Mike Pence, his former vice president who he ousted from MAGA after rebuking his scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election as unconstitutional.
“Well, it’s a shame because he and I had a very good relationship,” Trump replied.
He’s just “hanging out somewhere” joked Schulz.
“He couldn’t cross the line of doing what was right, in my opinion. 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 replied, referring to his scheme to have Pence refuse to count the state-certified electoral votes and have them sent back to GOP legislatures to change the outcome.
“And he had a lawyer that said he didn’t have that right. But he did have that right. And you know why we found out that that was true? Because they changed the law after the election so that he couldn’t do what I said he could do,” Trump added as Schulz said, “Yeah.”
Trump is referring to a bipartisan law that passed the House in December of 2022 that clarified the wording of the Electoral Counting Act. PBS reported at the time, “The provisions amending the 1887 law — which has long been criticized as poorly and confusingly written — won bipartisan support and would make it harder for future presidential losers to prevent the ascension of their foes, as Trump tried to do on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Trump continued, “Okay. They changed the law so that a vice president could no longer do what I said he could do. So in other words, I turned out to be right. But it’s a shame. We had a very good relationship for 99.9% of the thing.”
“Yeah. And, you know, I think he’s a good man. And I think he’s. That’s good. Unfortunately, I wish he would have had the stamina, maybe courage, and maybe both to go further. Because we have to have honest elections in our country. And if we’re afraid to challenge an election, we’re in big trouble,” Trump concluded as Schulz did not push back and soon turned the conversation to talk about Barron Trump moving to New York City.
Pence for his part has made clear he will not support Trump’s bid for another term this November. In August, Pence said, “I cannot endorse President Trump’s continuing assertion that I should have set aside my oath to defend the Constitution and acted in a way that would have overturned the election in January of 2021.” Trump took his claims of election fraud to court in dozens of cases across multiple states, all of which were dismissed by judges as audits and all the evidence pointed to the election being fair.
Trump’s desire for Pence to “go further” on January 6th would have effectively meant moving the election out of the hands of the courts and state election officials that certified the election and giving it over to elected state legislators he believed were loyal to him, which would have been unprecedented in American history.
Watch the clip above.
