President Donald Trump pulled out every trick he knew to try and circumvent the certification of the 2020 election of Joe Biden, even resorting to playground bullying. ABC News shared details of a conversation between Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, with Trump warning Pence that he would “go down as a wimp” if he didn’t take steps to avoid awarding the presidency to Biden.
That snippet was part of a preview of Johnathan Karl’s upcoming book on Trump’s 2024 campaign and was pulled from Pence’s notes about his call with the president shortly before the election certification ceremony. Per those notes, Trump told Pence that the then-veep was “not protecting our country,”
“I said we both [took] an oath to support + defend the Constitution,” Pence reportedly replied, per his notes. “It doesn’t take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.”
Trump went on to say that Pence “listen[s] to the wrong people.” Soon after the call, Trump targeted Pence directly during a speech to gathered supporters at the Ellipse. In his final report on his investigation into the president’s activities on Jan. 6, former Special Counsel Jack Smith pointed to a forensic copy of Trump’s phone that showed the president had changed his prepared remarks shortly before taking the stage.
Start your day with essential news from Salon.Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.
While testifying before the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, multiple White House insiders confirmed that Pence and Trump had a tense conversation in the hours before a mob descended on the Capitol. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, said their chat was “heated,” and Trump aide Nicholas Luna backed up the version of events found in Pence’s notes.
“I remember hearing the word wimp, either he called him a wimp, I don’t remember if he said ‘you are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp,’ wimp is the word I remember,” Luna shared in 2022.
Read more
about Mike Pence