Former President Donald J. Trump unleashed a new attack on the man who had served him as vice president, criticising him for refusing to interfere with the Electoral College certification of the 2020 presidential contest. This attack came a day after the House committee investigating the assault on January 6 illustrated the serious danger that rioters posed to Mike Pence. The committee’s findings illustrated the serious threat that rioters posed to Pence.
Speaking on Friday afternoon in front of a faith-based group, Mr. Trump said that “Mike did not have the fortitude to act” when it came to attempting to reject all of the Electoral College votes that were being cast for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a unilateral fashion.
On Thursday, the House panel presented evidence that Mr. Trump and his aides were aware that Mr. Pence did not have the authority to obstruct the certification and that doing so would be in violation of the law, but they nevertheless encouraged him to do so regardless.
The committee also employed witnesses to demolish and disprove Mr. Trump’s bogus allegations of widespread election fraud. These are points that Mr. Trump reiterated during his keynote address on Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition convention in Nashville. The committee used witnesses to achieve this.
According to his aides, as Mr. Trump has watched the hearings, he has been more agitated due to the realisation that he does not have a bully pulpit from which he can reply. In a significant portion of his speech on Friday, he reiterated the bogus election claims he had made and insulted Mr. Pence.
The context of the attack on Mr. Pence was most striking. His presence on the presidential ticket in 2016 was critical to reassuring evangelical voters that Mr. Trump, a thrice-married New York real estate developer whose first divorce was tabloid fodder for months and who had supported abortion rights, had become sufficiently conservative on social issues. However, Mr. Pence’s presence on the ticket was critical to reassuring evangelical voters that Mr. Trump had become sufficiently conservative on social issues.
Mr. Pence is a favourite among the sort of people who are attending the conference because he often discusses his Christian beliefs. Even yet, Mr. Trump took to the stage on Friday to deliver a scathing attack on the individual in question.
Mr. Trump then switched his attention to Mr. Pence after repeating assertions about election fraud that have been refuted by a broad variety of people, including his former attorney general, William P. Barr.
First, he insisted that he had not called Mr. Pence a “wimp” in a phone call with the vice president on the morning of January 6, 2021. Second, he insisted that he had not called Mr. Pence a “coward” in a phone call with the vice president on the morning of January 6, 2021. In front of the throng, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t even know who these guys are.”
“I never called Mike Pence a weak,” Mr. Trump said, whose daughter Ivanka was there for the conversation and subsequently informed her chief of staff that Mr. Trump had essentially labelled Mr. Pence a coward by using a profanity.
“Mike Pence had the potential to become an outstanding individual. He had an opportunity to, very honestly, make history,” the previous president said. He said that Mr. Pence, “much like Bill Barr and the rest of these weak individuals,” did not have the “courage to act.” The remark was greeted with a round of applause.
Trump on multiple occasions that he did not have the authority to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the Electoral College or declare a 10-day recess in the congressional session to send the votes back to the states to be re-examined.
Mr. Trump said that Mike Pence was forced to take the role of a human conveyor belt because he had no other option.
Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the certification of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential win in 1801, which was a process that Jefferson, who was serving as vice president at the time, managed, in order to imply that Mr. Pence should have used that model in order to keep Mr. Trump in office.
Mr. Trump shared his story, saying, “I told Mike that if he did this, he might be Thomas Jefferson.” “And then after everything went down, I looked at him one day and I said, ‘Mike, I hate to say this, but you’re not Thomas Jefferson.'” “And then after it all went down, I looked at him one day and I said, ‘Mike, I hate to say this, but you’re not
According to Mr. Pence’s previous chief of staff, Marc Short, this discussion was never really had. Mr. Short did not provide any wider-ranging commentary on Mr. Trump’s address.
Mr. Trump also took issue with the fact that the House committee had altered the tapes of his former advisers testifying so that they were not played again in their entirety. It seemed that he was making a veiled reference to his daughter Ivanka’s testimony, the comments of which have been used as evidence against her father in two separate sessions.
When asked about the crowd that followed him into the Capitol after his address on the Ellipse on January 6, Mr. Trump maintained a defiant stance. He said, “It was nothing more than a simple protest.” It’s no longer under our control.