- Recent books on Trump show new perspectives on Vice President Mike Pence.
- Pence refuses to give in to pressure from Trump to reject the 2020 election results.
- Pence suggested invoking the Insurrection Act during the George Floyd protests.
WASHINGTON – The summer of 2021 can be marked by everything that has been revealed in a series of books about former President Donald Trump’s last year in office.
“Landslide: The Last Days of the Trump Presidency” by Michael Wolff; “Frankly, We Won This Election: The Inside Story of Trump’s Loss”; and “Only I Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Disastrous Final Year,” by Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig. and Philip Rucker looked at the chaotic actions of the Trump administration in 2020.
They also reveal details of former Vice President Mike Pence’s role in descending Trump into the belief in false conspiracy theories of voter fraud and the January 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol. .
Here are five things we learned about Pence as the deferential vice president who ultimately stood up to his boss during the unprecedented aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
“Anarchy and chaos”:Michael Bender’s book describes Trump’s White House unrest
Pence pushes back during voter certification process
Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, was a crucial player in guiding the former vice president’s final days following Trump’s election defeat, Wolff said in “Landslide.”
Short was not one of the administration aides who believed in the bogus allegations of electoral fraud spewed out by Trump and other conspiracy theorists. After the election, Short “began to carefully plan the vice president’s last days.”
“Short was privately telling party leaders and West Wing aides that there had been ‘no debate’ within the vice president’s office about his role in chairing the vote count,” writes Wolff.
In a Jan. 5 meeting with constitutionality scholar John Eastman, Pence rebuffed Eastman’s arguments that he had the power to accept or reject voters during the certification process. In “Frankly We Won” Bender alleges that “Pence thought Trump was getting bad legal advice.”
After meeting with Eastman, “Pence and Short thought they couldn’t have been clearer about their views and what actions the VP would take, and what he would not,” adds Wolff. .
Trump, however, continued to believe that Pence would block Congress from certifying the election.
Related:Michael Wolff’s ‘landslide’ recounts Trump’s Brett Kavanaugh rant, fury against Netanyahu
Pence refuses to leave Capitol during riots on January 6
As pro-Trump rioters ransacked the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, Pence’s Secret Service hastily brought it to safety.
Pence was moved to his ceremonial office during the riot but was still in a vulnerable position. Tim Giebels, the senior special agent in charge of Pence details, has twice asked the vice president to evacuate the Capitol.
Pence refused.
“I am not leaving the Capitol,” he told Giebels, according to the “I Alone” account.
Giebels asked Pence for a third time to leave.
“The room you are in is not secure. There are windows. I need to move you. Were going. “
Pence was moved “to a secure underground area that rioters couldn’t reach, where Pence’s armored limo was waiting.”
However, Pence always refused to get in the limo, fearing he would be seen fleeing the Capitol, justifying the rioters.
A calm pence orders troops at the Capitol
As military leaders seek to deploy National Guard and federal law enforcement from neighboring states to Capitol Hill, Pence called Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller from his secure location, according to the “I Alone” account. .
“Bring troops here; bring them here now, ”a calm Pence ordered Miller. “We need to get Congress to do its job. “
“Yes, sir,” Miller replied.
It was the harshest speech Miller had ever heard Pence, Leonnig and Rucker write in “I Alone”.
More from ‘I Alone’:In new book, Trump boasts that even a founding father may not have beaten him
Pence suggests invoking the Uprising Act
Trump summoned top military, law enforcement and West Wing advisers to the White House after the New York Times reported that he, Melania Trump and his son Barron were transferred to a bunker in the sub- ground during the protests that erupted following the death of George Floyd.
At the White House meeting, it was Pence who suggested invoking the Uprising Act, according to “Frankly, we won.”
“You are laughing at me ? A senior administration official thought, ”Bender says.
Trump became obsessed with the insurgency after Pence brought it up. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley “was horrified by Pence’s suggestion,” Bender said.
Trump agrees with Pence as rival in 2024
Trump continually flirted with the candidacy again in 2024, where he could meet his vice president as a rival.
Asked about this by Leonnig and Rucker in “I Alone,” Trump told reporters, “It’s a free country, isn’t it?
Trump did not pledge to pick Pence as his running mate and dismissed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as running mate.
He also expressed his “disappointment” with Pence for certifying the 2020 election results in “I Alone” as well as “Frankly, We Did Win” and “Landslide”.
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