Former vice president Mike Pence strongly condemned Donald Trump’s conduct during the January 6 attack on the Capitol building in a new interview.
Trump’s action that day “endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building…It was clear he decided to be part of the problem,” Pence said during an exclusive conversation with ABC set to air Monday.
One of the mob’s primary goals that day was to pressure Pence to refuse to fulfill his ceremonial role of certifying the results of the 2020 election on the grounds that the election was stolen through fraud. Rioters were heard chanting “Hang Mike Pence” with some even erecting gallows in a bid to intimidate Pence.
At the time, then-President Trump decided to fan the flames rather than help disperse the crowds laying siege to the Capitol building. While lawmakers were barricaded inside, Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
Pence was reportedly next to his daughter as the events were unfolding. “I turned to my daughter, who was standing nearby, and I said, ‘It doesn’t take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law,’” Pence told ABC.
Pence’s interview comes on the heels of the Republican Party’s disappointing performance in Tuesday’s midterm elections. While many pollsters initially believed that Republicans would regain comfortable majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats held their Senate majority thanks to Senator Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory over Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada. As of Monday morning, control of the House remained up in the air.
In light of the party’s underwhelming results, many Republicans have increasingly laid blame for the electoral loss at Trump’s feet. Many of the former president’s endorsed and hand-picked candidates performed poorly and dragged down the party’s encouraging results in Florida and New York.
Pence has been one of the many Republican candidates expected to potentially jump into the 2024 presidential nomination fray. For his part, the former vice president has been meeting with donors, releasing a new book, and going on a media blitz to raise his profile.
The former vice president has yet to officially announce his candidacy.