Former Vice President Mike Pence and his broken relationship with his ex-boss are back under the spotlight after the indictment on Tuesday of former President Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Pence is a central figure in the 45-page indictment, which accuses Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States through repeated, knowingly false assertions that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump’s claims culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob outside the building was seen and heard calling for Pence’s hanging.
The indictment puts the events of Jan. 6 front and center, and by extension elevates Pence and his break from Trump at a time when the two are rivals for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination.
It also includes a new revelation: contemporaneous notes Pence took during meetings with Trump in which the then-president made claims of widespread voter fraud that had already been debunked.
The results are likely to lead to more questions for Pence from Trump supporters, some of whom have already been seen on camera asking the former vice president why he didn’t take action to keep Trump in the White House.
Pence has repeatedly and accurately pointed out he had no power to do so — despite the proclamations from Trump and, as Pence put it Wednesday, the former president’s “crackpot” lawyers.
Many Republicans and even some Democrats have expressed appreciation for Pence’s actions on Jan. 6. But Pence’s principled stance, while in some ways central to his campaign message, is making it harder for him to wrest the GOP nomination from Trump, who is far and away the front-runner for the crown.
“No one is going to say a bad word about Mike Pence’s character and who he is as an individual. I think that’s the baseline everyone’s willing to start with,” said one former Trump campaign official.
“But don’t discount that there’s a group of those folks who say you didn’t do the right thing on Jan. 6,” the official added. “There are the Trump loyalists who, if they were ever going to break away from Trump, they’re not going to break to Mike Pence for that reason.”
The indictment lays out the extent to which Trump and some of his co-conspirators tried to pressure Pence to overturn the 2020 election results publicly and privately.
It details multiple phone calls in the lead-up to Jan. 6 where Trump broached the subject, and prosecutors allege Trump reinserted language into his Jan. 6 speech outside the White House specifically targeting Pence after advisers convinced him to take it out.
Rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” as they marched through the Capitol on Jan. 6 as the then-vice president and his family were whisked away to safety. At the same time, witnesses described Trump as showing little regard for the safety of his vice president, saying Pence “deserves” it.
While many other GOP presidential candidates criticized the justice system or danced around news of Trump’s indictment on Tuesday, Pence reiterated what was the crux of his campaign launch speech in early June: Regardless of whether Trump’s actions Jan. 6 were criminal, they were disqualifying for him to serve another term in the White House.
“Our country is more important than one man. Our constitution is more important than any one man’s career,” Pence said in a Tuesday statement. “On January 6th, Former President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. I chose the Constitution and I always will.”
Speaking to reporters Wednesday at the Indiana State Fair, Pence said he hoped it would not come to an indictment and the public would judge Trump at the ballot box. But he remained steadfast that Trump’s request to overturn the election results were contrary to the Constitution.
“Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear,” Pence said.
In a Wednesday post on Truth Social, Trump said he felt “badly” for Pence, saying his former vice president “is attracting no crowds, enthusiasm, or loyalty from people who, as a member of the Trump Administration, should be loving him.”
Pence has faced an uphill climb to gain traction with the GOP primary electorate since launching his White House campaign in early June. He has polled in single digits in most surveys, and he has yet to hit the donor threshold needed to qualify for the first GOP debate happening in just a few weeks.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week found 40 percent of Republican-leaning respondents view Pence favorably, compared to 45 percent who view him unfavorably.
The same poll found 80 percent of Republican-leaning respondents had a favorable view of Trump, compared to 17 percent who held an unfavorable view.
Pence has been more willing than most GOP candidates to break with Trump, particularly on matters of policy. He has criticized his old running mate for his stances on Social Security and government spending, the war in Ukraine, and his past praise for dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But Pence on Wednesday acknowledged Jan. 6 is likely to be an issue that dominates the discourse moving forward now that Trump has been indicted and with a potential trial hovering over election season.
“It’s not all about Jan. 6, but I’m going to make my case just as strongly as I have every day since that I know I did my duty that day,” Pence said on Fox News when asked about the prospect of sharing a debate stage with Trump. “I’m going to call the president out on the fact that he called upon me to choose him over my oath to the Constitution, but I chose the Constitution.”