Mike Pence Q&A Derailed As Trump and Pence Supporters Clash: ‘I Am a Veteran Buddy, You Shut Your Mouth!’
Twitter/@IAStartingLine
A Q&A session with former Vice President Mike Pence was derailed on Thursday after a member of the audience asked, “Why did you commit treason on January 6?”
Having already been heckled, Pence fielded questions from the audience following his speech at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday, only to be met with several hostile questions from supporters of his former running mate Donald Trump.
“Why did you commit treason on January 6 and not stand by President Trump?” one man asked Pence, to boos from the rest of the audience.
A Pence supporter in the audience then squared up to the man, pointing at him and shouting, “I am a veteran buddy. You shut your mouth!”
Another audience member then joined in, shouting, “And the Red Sox suck!”
“No, I got you,” Pence assured. “I’ll answer your question. I’ll answer your question.”
He then said:
Look, let me take you to January 20th, 2017. I put my left hand on Ronald Reagan’s Bible and I raised my right hand and I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and it ended with a prayer, ‘so help me God.’ My son, who’s a captain in the United States Marine Corps reminded me one time that it’s the exact same oath that he took. It was a promise I made to the American people, it was a promise I made to almighty God.
Now I know you might have a different impression about what my duties and responsibilities were on January 6, and I’m happy to talk to you about it. The truth is that states conduct our elections, they do, and once Iowa certifies the elections, when there are questions you can go to court…
But when all that was done, if you read Article Two of the Constitution, which I recommend you very respectfully, Article Two says once the states send their electoral votes to the Congress of the United States, the vice president, as president of the Senate, will preside over a joint session of Congress, and what it says is at that joint session the electoral votes shall be opened and shall be counted. It doesn’t say ‘may,’ it doesn’t say you can send them back to the states, it doesn’t say you can reject votes, even though my former running mate and many of his outside lawyers told me that that authority was there. I knew there never was. I mean look, there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could pick the American president.
Supporters of former President Trump have repeatedly accused Pence of treason for refusing to block the certification of the results of the 2020 election after Trump was defeated by President Joe Biden. During the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots, protesters could be heard chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”
During the Q&A on Thursday, an audience member also asked Pence, “How has life treated you since Tucker Carlson ruined your career?” in reference to a viral debate Carlson had with Pence last month.
“You know, I had a very sporty debate with that former talk show host at Fox,” Pence replied. “And I will tell you, you know, when some people put out a video from that, they cut off the back half of my answer.”
Pence then explained why he believed the war in Ukraine to be in America’s national interest.
