CNN Funeral Team Struck By Trump Meeting Pence In Person For First Time In 4 Years — When Rioters Chanted ‘Hang Mike Pence’

CNN’s coverage team was struck by President-elect Donald Trump’s first meeting with former Vice President Mike Pence in 4 years, as they shook hands at late President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

Four years ago, Trump cheered on a mob as they hunted then-Vice President Mike Pence through the Capitol grounds chanting for him to be hanged because he refused Trump’s demand to go along with a plot to overturn the election. Aside from a 90-minute meeting days after the attack, the two have not been in the same room since then.

Jake Tapper, Kaitlan Collins, Dana Bash, and John King were among the CNN anchors who covered President Carter’s funeral Thursday, a day after Carter’s body lay in state at the Capitol. Collins was first to note that this would be their first meeting in years, but the others also commented on it — King most pointedly:

DANA BASH: Let’s just start with the people we have seen on the screen with Mike Pence. When was the last time Mike Pence was in the same room as Donald Trump?

JAKE TAPPER: Four years ago.

DANA BASH: That’s going to happen today. Mike Pence there with Al Gore, who we now know was a sort of north star for him.

…

JOHN KING: I would posit that what we’re seeing right now, which is wonderful, a moment of bipartisanship, people coming together will not be an arc. It will be a brief moment. We are days away from the return of Donald Trump and bipartisan Washington. We should celebrate it today. We don’t get enough of it in this town where people have respect for service, respect for individuals, respect for bigger things than party labels. So I would celebrate it today because we will in days, we will not see Mike Pence in the same room as Donald Trump after this day.

JAKE TAPPER: So as well, there is Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Al Gore, the former Vice President Pence and Trump. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since January 2021. A lot of tension between the two men and. It didn’t look particularly warm just now one might observe. In any case, this is the first president of many that we’re expecting.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Jake, to be able to hear those conversations that are happening. These are just moments that that you don’t you don’t see hardly ever.

And just to go back to that moment where Trump walked into the room and shook hands with Mike Pence, that is the first interaction that those two have had. They have not even been in the same room in four years.

I called to to just double check that this morning with a few aides of both of theirs. And it just was a moment to see them come and shake hands with one another.

Watch above via CNN’s live coverage of President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.