Mike Pence can’t out-prevaricate Trump, nobody can, but he’s sure trying to lower the bar on politician double-talk. On Thursday, December 1, 2022,
“Pence told PBS … that soon after the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden, he approached … Trump to suggest that ‘he ought to be prepared to accept the outcome of the election and move forward.'”
(See story here.) If so, that’s one of the 2020 election’s best-kept secrets, and least-useful interventions (if you want to pressure somebody, you do it by going public).
“Pence defended the more than 60 legal challenges brought by Trump to challenge the election’s results, as well as the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally that was held before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, saying, ‘I actually thought there might be some use in having people come and draw attention to the legal process that would take place in the Congress, that we’d have an opportunity to vent concerns about irregularities that did occur and look at any fraud evidence that ultimately did not come. But it never occurred to me, any more than I think almost anyone else, that the violence of that day would ensue,’ Pence said ….”
(See story here.) Those legal challenges are indefensible; they were all thrown out as frivolous, including by Trump-appointed Republican judges. Do these people look interested in “legal process”? It “never occurred to” him that inciting a mob could, and likely would, lead to violence? Another GOP participant in that day’s events apparently had precisely that foresight.
“When asked if he was angry at Trump at the time, Pence said yes and added that he ‘was angry at what I saw and the way it dishonored the millions of people who had supported our cause around the country.’”
(Previous link above.) Really? When Trump’s mob chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” (they would’ve done it, too), he was angry at their cause being dishonored?
Pence probably shouldn’t have given this interview. He comes across looking stupid, duplicitous, mealy-mouthed, and weak. This probably won’t harm him politically, because that’s expected of politicians, especially Republican ones still trapped in Trump’s orbit, and he doesn’t have a political future anyway. But if he’s called on to testify, he may want to revise those statements, because (A) nobody will believe him, and (B) there are penalties for fibbing under oath.