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Mike Pence has said he had no idea what Donald Trump was doing while the Capitol was attacked on January 6, saying: ‘That would be a good question for him.’
The former vice president, whose memoir is out on Tuesday, is embarking on a publicity tour that saw him on Monday night sit down for an hour with ABC News’ David Muir.
Pence, 63, confirmed that he was mulling a run for the presidency in 2024, and said he felt the United States would have ‘better choices’ than to re-elect Trump.
He described being ‘infuriated’ and enraged by the rioters storming the Capitol, and admitted that, in hindsight, he was wrong to say on January 4 that ‘we’ll have our day’ on January 6.
‘Hindsight is always 20:20,’ he told Muir.
‘But I never imagined the violence that would ensure on January 6.’
Mike Pence is seen during his ABC News interview with David Muir, discussing the January 6 insurrection
Muir asked Pence for his reaction to Donald Trump’s tweet, in which Trump said Pence was a coward for failing to overturn the 2020 election
Pence, choosing his words carefully, could not conceal the anger he felt at Trump’s demands that he overturn the 2020 election and his fiery rhetoric, describing it as ‘reckless’.
Asked whether Trump kept his oath to preserve and protect the Constitution, Pence replied: ‘All I know for sure is that if I had done what the president wanted me to do I wouldn’t have kept my oath.’
Speaking to Muir inside his Indiana home, Pence described being ushered out of the Senate chamber, and into a back room.
‘I was filled with indignation about what I saw,’ he said.
‘The Secret Service came in shortly after and said we need to get you out the building. I said I’m not leaving.’
He told how he stuck his finger into the chest of his lead Secret Service agent, and told him: ‘You’re not hearing me.’
A compromise was reached, whereby Pence was ushered downstairs to the parking lot, amid the noise and chaos.
Trump and Pence are pictured in happier times: in July 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio, during the RNC
Pence is seen during the January 6 riot, with his daughter Charlotte, 29
Pence was ushered to the parking lot beneath the Capitol, but refused to get in his motorcade
An aide told him at 2:24pm that Trump had tweeted: ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.’
Pence said he was ‘angered’ by Trump’s words.
He then, in a bid to put an end to the rioting, rang the Pentagon, speaking to the acting Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff in addition to the acting Attorney General and the chief of the Capitol Police.
‘Where was the president in all this?’ Muir asked him.
Pence replied: ‘David, I was at the Capitol. I wasn’t at the White House.’
Muir asked how he felt on learning later that Trump was watching the insurrection unfold live on television, reportedly gleeful at the passion of his supporters despite the death and destruction unfolding inside the Capitol.
Three rioters died during the unrest from a heart attack, a stroke and being crushed, with a fourth fatally shot by Capitol Police.
One member of the Capitol Police, Brian Sicknick, collapsed and died of multiple strokes shortly after confronting the rioters.
‘I can’t account for what the president was doing that day. I was at a loading dock in the Capitol where a riot was taking place,’ said Pence.
Muir asked: ‘But why wasn’t he making these calls?’
‘That would be a good question for him,’ Pence replied.
‘David, I don’t know what the president was doing that afternoon.
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‘ I know that what some testimony that’s been presented to the January 6th Committee, but I knew what my duty was and my determination to do it.’
Rioters erected a gallows outside the Capitol and were chanting: ‘Hang Mike Pence’
The insurrectionists are seen surging into the building, with Pence and others inside
Pence said he did not speak to Trump until five days after the riot – noting the then-president did not call him amid the rioting, despite knowing he was inside.
He said the Democrat leadership did call him, and express concern for his wellbeing.
He said their shared resolve to resume the confirmation of the vote was ‘the same thing I saw after 9/11.’
He added: ‘In that moment there were no Republicans. There were no Democrats. There were just Americans.’
Pence described his first conversation with Trump after the riot, noting how the then-president remarked that Pence’s wife Karen and daughter Charlotte were inside the Capitol with him, and asking how they were.
‘I told him they were fine,’ Pence recalled.
‘He asked: ‘were you scared?’
‘I said no, I was angry.
‘We had our differences.
‘I told him seeing those people ransacking the Capitol infuriated me.’
Trump (pictured on January 6, 2021) is expected to announce a third campaign for president on Tuesday evening
He would not say if he’d primary Trump but said he was giving a 2024 bid ‘prayerful consideration’
Muir asked whether Trump said he was sorry.
‘Not in so many words, but in sentiment he did. If you get my meaning,’ said Pence.
‘I sensed the president was genuinely saddened.
‘At one point he simply said – with his voice, much more faint than it ever had been – what if we hadn’t had the rally.
‘He said it’s so sad to end like this.’
Pence on Monday night also spoke to Fox News host Sean Hannity, and put a much more positive spin on events.
Pence is seen on Monday night talking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity
He emphasized that he and Trump were strong allies and good friends, and praised their accomplishments.
‘As different as the two of us are, President Trump and I actually forged a close working relationship,’ Pence told Hannity.
‘He was not just my president, he was my friend.
‘We spent time together every day when I was in the White House.’
The devout Christian said he and the billionaire businessman ‘parted amicably’.
‘We had a successful relationship that didn’t end well,’ said Pence.
‘I’ll always believe that I did my constitutional duty.’
