‘You’ll Go Down as a Wimp!’ New Book Reveals Shocking Details of Trump’s Final Call to Mike Pence On Jan. 6

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

President Donald Trump reportedly told former Vice President Mike Pence he would go down in history as a “wimp” in a shocking phone call on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to a preview of Jon Karl’s new book Retribution published Sunday by ABC News, the former vice president’s notes from the call detail Trump trying to shame Pence into refusing to certify the results of the 2020 election.

“If you do that, I made a big mistake 5 years ago,” Trump told Pence — according to Pence’s notes, as published in the book. Trump added, “You’ll go down as a wimp.”

The president also reportedly told his vice president, “You listen to the wrong people.”

That final Jan. 6 phone call was the culmination of a failed weeks-long effort to try to get Pence to withhold certification. Special counsel Jack Smith, in his 2023 indictment of Trump, cited Pence’s notes from a Jan. 4 meeting in which the president put on a full court press.

“During the meeting, as reflected in the Vice President’s contemporaneous notes, the Defendant [Trump] made knowingly false claims of election fraud, including, ‘Bottom line—won every state by 100,000s of votes’ and ‘We won every state,’ and asked—regarding a claim his senior Justice Department officials previously had told him was false, including as recently as the night before—’What about 205,000 votes more in PA than voters?’ The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 2 then asked the Vice President to either unilaterally reject the legitimate electors from the seven targeted states, or send the question of which slate was legitimate to the targeted states’ legislatures. When the Vice President challenged Co-Conspirator 2 on whether the proposal to return the question to the states was defensible, Co-Conspirator 2 responded, ‘Well, nobody’s tested it before.’ The Vice President then told the Defendant, ‘Did you hear that? Even your own counsel is not saying I have that authority.’ The Defendant responded, ‘That’s okay, I prefer the other suggestion’ of the Vice President rejecting the electors unilaterally.”

——

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!