Mike Pence On Trump and Capitol Riot: ‘I Don’t Know If We’ll Ever See Eye To Eye On That Day’

Former Vice President Mike Pence was in Manchester, New Hampshire Thursday night to give a speech at the Hillsborough County Republican Committee’s Lincoln-Reagan Dinner. During his speech he addressed the January 6 Capitol riot. On that day, then-President Donald Trump held a rally in Washington, D.C. and repeated the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him. Later, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, where Pence was presiding over the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Some of the rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” after a makeshift gallows had been set up outside the building.

“You know, President Trump and I have spoken many times since we left office,” Pence told the crowd on Thursday. “And I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day. But I will always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years.”

After the Capitol was breached, Pence was escorted out of the Senate chamber at 2:14 pm. Ten minutes later, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”

Trump apparently made no effort to contact or otherwise check on the welfare of Pence or his family, who were also present at the Capitol that day. The president claimed he was unaware that his vice president was in danger.

One report says that during the riot, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) got into a shouting match with the president via phone about calling off the rioters. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told him, according to lawmakers with whom McCarthy discussed the call.

“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing,” Trump told rally attendees during his January 6 rally earlier in the day, referring to Pence’s nonexistent authority to overturn the election results as the presiding officer of the election’s certification.

“I hope so,” he continued. “I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.

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