Former Vice President Mike Pence said Donald Trump’s insistence he could overturn the 2020 general election results on January 6 was wrong and dangerous.
“And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day,” Pence said, according to a New York Post report of a Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, D.C.
Pence, a likely challenger for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, made his remarks before 600 journalists and politicians at the Gridiron Club dinner. The former vice president has previously blasted his former boss for his handling of the 2020 election loss.
He reminded the audience he refused to be escorted from the Capitol by Secret Service agents after protesters illegally entered the Capitol building January 6, 2021. Detractors claim the crowd who had earlier attended a Donald Trump rally were intent on overturning the election result by pressuring Pence to not certify the results.
Pence was performing his ceremonial duty as Senate president of certifying electoral college votes after the 2020 general election January 6. Trump reportedly wanted him to contest the results in the belief it would allow the 45th president to stay in office. Pence refused, according to the report.
”I was not afraid,” Pence said, “but I was angry.”
He claimed the former president’s push to rewrite the 2020 election results was misguided.
“President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” the former vice president said. “And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable,” he added.
Pence balked when Secret Service agents whisked him off the Senate floor, according to the Post report. The report noted agents told him he had to leave the Capitol because some protesters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”
“But I was determined to stay,” Trump’s VP reportedly said. “I believed that law enforcement would soon have the situation in hand, never imagining what would unfurl, would occur.”
“But it was there, in that small office just off the Senate chamber, there was a small television set, and we watched what was unfolding outside — the mayhem and the rioting. You could hear it echoing outside and soon thereafter in the hallways,” Pence said.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.
