Mike Pence, pondering a presidential run, condemns Trump's rhetoric on Jan. 6
Former Vice President Mike Pence's new memoir recounts his life up to the moment when he refused to overturn the 2020 election defeat of then-President Donald Trump.
So Help Me God is the kind of polished life story that is often a preliminary for a presidential run, which Pence is considering. Coincidentally or not, the book's release date, Nov. 15, was exactly the date that Trump declared his run for the presidency in 2024.
Trump's announcement competed with but did not entirely drown out Pence, who has given interviews about his book to multiple networks and newspapers in recent weeks.
It was revealing that, after the midterm election defeat of numerous high-profile candidates who rejected the 2020 election results, Trump's announcement speech did not directly mention his claims about his defeat — a subject he'd discussed constantly for two years, including in a January interview with NPR. Instead, Pence is the one discussing it, saying that Trump was "wrong" and that they have gone "our separate ways."
Pence faces an extraordinary challenge as a political leader whose national reputation is closely tied to the record of the Trump administration but who says the Constitution and his conscience would not allow him to follow Trump's ultimate demand.
The former vice president met an NPR team at the law library of the Indiana state capitol: a fitting spot, both because he once served as the state's governor and because upholding the law is now at the center of the story he has to tell.
For part of the 42-minute conversation, Pence recounted the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when he presided over the ceremonial counting of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.
When a mob disrupted the proceedings, Pence retreated with family members to an office within the U.S. Capitol and then to an underground parking garage, but refused to flee the building.
"It just infuriated me," he said, and once police had restored control of the building, he managed that evening to preside over the completion of the vote count. Eventually he learned that many members of the mob, egged on by a tweet from the president, had chanted to hang him.
"President Trump was wrong, and his words and actions that day were reckless," Pence said. "They endangered my family and people at the Capitol building. And I'll never hold any other view."
That's a far cry from the speech that Pence, chosen as Trump's running mate, gave at the 2016 Republican National Convention, in which he called Trump a "good man."
Asked whether he still considers Trump a good man, Pence replied at considerable length without ever saying that he did. He said only that Trump had authored important achievements but was "wrong" on Jan. 6.
"I truly do believe that only God knows our hearts," he added. "And I'll leave it to others to make their own judgments."
Pence spoke with NPR's Morning Edition about his faith, his political trajectory and where he thinks he and his party might be headed next. The full transcript of that conversation can be found here.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Interview highlights
On the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade
I'm pro-life. I don't apologize for it. I'll always cherish the fact that I was vice president in the administration that appointed three of the justices of the Supreme Court that gave us a new beginning for life, that returned the question of abortion to the states and to the American people, where it belongs. ... I said in the wake of the Dobbs decision that we haven't come to the end — we've come to the end of the beginning. And I'm determined in however many years I have left on this earth to be a voice for the unborn and to work every day to restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law. ... Whatever role we're in, I'll look to be a voice for the right to life.
On the fact that midterm voters were generally favorable to abortion rights
The common denominator for me was that Republicans who articulated their position on the right to life did well. Republicans who did not articulate their position and allowed their position to be defined did not do as well. ... I want to concede a point. We have a ways to go in this issue. But I believe that in the most prosperous nation on Earth, we ought to be a nation that is grounded in the unalienable right to life and makes it possible for women in crisis pregnancies to go to term or raise their child or give their child up for adoption. But I also think it's just as important, as you see states advance pro-life legislation, that they advance legislation not just for the unborn, but for the newborn.
On why, as he says in his book, he thinks his faith has been "misunderstood"
When my wife was attacked for teaching at a Christian school, when one media outlet after another ridiculed our Christian faith from time to time, I was always struck by that. Because as I traveled around America, the words I most often heard, and I heard them every day, where people would reach out across a rope line or stop me on a street corner and say, "I'm praying for you." I mean, this is a nation of faith, of different faiths. I'm a born-again Christian, raised in a wonderful Catholic home. But the American people cherish faith in the overwhelming majority, and yet it seemed to be a subject of fascination by some in the liberal media.
On whether he thinks people misunderstand his stance on LGBTQ issues
I don't believe anyone should ever be harassed or discriminated against because of who they are, who they love or what they believe. But that being said, there are profound implications on this question, as Justice Kennedy wrote in the Obergefell decision, that bear upon religious freedom — and the courts have been sorting through that ever since. I will tell you, I've been encouraged that the Supreme Court has been striking a balance on the issues of religious liberty and individual rights, and I trust that the conservatives on the court will continue to do that. But if there's anything people don't understand well about the Pences is ... to know our family, we love everybody. My faith tells me to love your neighbor as yourself. And that's something we aspire to do every day, whether we agree with every view or every value of the people that we meet.
On what Pence would want to accomplish if elected president
Traveling around this country, what I've heard from the American people is they want to get back to the policies of the Trump-Pence administration: of a strong military, of free market economics, conservatives on our courts, America standing with our allies, standing up to our enemies. But I think they long for leadership that could unite our country around our highest ideals and demonstrate the kind of respect and civility that the American people show each other every day.
This interview was produced by Phil Harrell and Nick Michael and edited by HJ Mai. Rachel Treisman adapted it for the web.
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Transcript
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
And I'm Steve Inskeep in Indianapolis. We came here to talk with former Vice President Mike Pence. He's the man rioters tried to find as they attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, Mike Pence? We're coming for you, too, [expletive] traitor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Where is Pence?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Bring Pence out.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Where is Pence?
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Bring him out.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Bring out Pence.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Bring him out.
INSKEEP: Mike Pence was in the Capitol that day presiding over the ceremonial vote counting for the presidential election. President Trump had lost and publicly denounced Pence for failing to reject his defeat. Pence said he had no constitutional authority to do as Trump demanded.
MIKE PENCE: He had a gaggle of outside lawyers that were telling him that as vice president, I had unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes to count, which no vice president in American history had ever claimed that authority.
INSKEEP: Pence has now recounted that experience and much else in a book called "So Help Me God." As attackers disrupted the vote count, Pence and his family retreated to an office and then to a parking garage. But he refused to leave the building.
PENCE: I just was determined to stay at my post.
INSKEEP: Once police cleared the Capitol, Pence and Congress returned to work. We talked about this in his home state of Indiana. We met at the state capitol, where he once served as governor. In particular, we sat beneath the ornate chandeliers of the building's law library. The law was what he said he upheld at the United States Capitol January 6.
PENCE: When the tweet came across from the president saying that I lack courage, it angered me. But I really didn't have time for it. It was a moment where it was clear to me the president had decided to be a part of the problem. I was determined to be part of the solution. And we convened the Republican and Democrat leaders of the Congress and started to work to get the response from the Pentagon and the Justice Department to support all those remarkable people in the Capitol Hill police that were holding the line against the angry crowd.
INSKEEP: Which, in fact, you did. It took all night, as I recall, before you got home. But the work was done. I want to ask about the period leading up to that because, of course, there was a period of several months leading up to that...
PENCE: Right.
INSKEEP: ...In which the president first predicted and then claimed a stolen election. You write something very interesting in this book. You say that, I believe, on November 7, two months before the attack on the Capitol, the race had been called for Joe Biden. And you spoke with Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and said you were not convinced that there had been sufficient irregularities to change the election. In the period that followed, did you consider yourself saying something in public or even conceding the race yourself, because you were on the ballot, too?
PENCE: Well, let me clarify something. Even at that early point, I was not convinced that there was fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election. And of course, evidence of widespread fraud would never come. But I was concerned about the voting irregularities that had taken place. And I said so all the way up to my correspondence to Congress on January 6. I mean, there were a half a dozen states around the country, Steve, that in the name of COVID had changed the rules around elections, sometimes through executive action, sometimes through an attorney general's decision.
INSKEEP: Sure.
PENCE: And in many cases, they were changes that seemed to benefit Democrat candidates in those states above Republicans. I thought it was important that we have that debate, was one of the reasons why I made it clear going into January 6 that I thought a fulsome debate about irregularities and any evidence of fraud that may emerge would be useful for the country, if only to set the stage for future reform, which I'm glad to see is happening in states around the country.
INSKEEP: Laws have changed. But did you think about or discuss doing as Attorney General Barr did, I think, on December 1 and just say, listen; there's not sufficient evidence here of anything major?
PENCE: For my part, I thought it was important that we just continue to support both the legal challenges as well as the legal processes that are established under federal law. I told the president that if the challenges in the court didn't play out, he should simply accept the result, support a peaceful transfer of power. And if he wanted to run again, he could run again.
INSKEEP: Granting that your advice to the president is private, could you have told us what you knew at that point?
PENCE: I think it was important in that moment that we let the courts...
INSKEEP: OK.
PENCE: ...The states through certification and then the Congress work entirely through that process, uphold the Constitution, uphold the laws of the country, and move our country forward under the rule of law.
INSKEEP: I want people to know that you include some of your past speeches in this book in an appendix in the end, including your 2016 convention speech in Cleveland accepting the vice presidential nomination. I was in Cleveland at the time, watched that speech. It's a good speech. I appreciated reading it again.
PENCE: Thank you.
INSKEEP: In that speech, you say Donald Trump is a good man, not just that he was the man for the moment or the right man or a strong candidate, but a good man.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PENCE: I've seen this good man up close, his utter lack of pretense, his respect for the people who work for him and his devotion to his family.
INSKEEP: Do you still believe he's a good man?
PENCE: President Trump was wrong on January 6 in arguing that I had the authority to overturn the election. But I'll always be proud of the record that we created for the American people, Steve.
INSKEEP: While you're proud of the record, you didn't just call him a good man again.
PENCE: Well, look; I truly do believe that only God knows our hearts. And I'll leave it to others to make their own judgments.
INSKEEP: Pence recounts meeting the president after January 6 and promising to pray for him. He says he sensed Trump was remorseful. But...
PENCE: Steve, when the president returned to the rhetoric he was using before January 6, began again to question those of us that have defended the Constitution, I just thought it was important that we go our separate ways. And we have.
INSKEEP: Pence says he will decide soon if he'll run for president. His memoir came out November 15. Coincidentally or not, that was the same day that Donald Trump chose to make an announcement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.
(CHEERING)
INSKEEP: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other Republicans are positioning to run. We asked Pence what his purpose would be if he runs. What would he want to do? And for the moment, he said, only service and unity.
PENCE: What I hear is people longing for leadership that reflects that same kind of civility and respect that I've always tried to aspire to.
INSKEEP: One of the reasons I ask why you'd want to do is because, as I'm sure you know, there's a debate about the future of the Republican Party. And there are some people who advocate what has been called national conservatism, which could be defined different ways. But one way to think of it is instead of going for small government and limited government, a kind of libertarian approach. Maybe you endorse a bigger or more active government that will promote or even impose traditional values. Do you support that way of thinking?
PENCE: Well, I'm not sure I've heard it put quite that way. But look; I'm Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order. But I'm a limited government conservative. You know, it all comes down to the limited government republic that our founders enshrined. And that's the foundation it rested on...
INSKEEP: So more of the Ronald Reagan idea than the national conservatism idea?
PENCE: Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural address, it's important to remember the states created the federal government. The federal government didn't create the states. I think we would do well as a country to seize a moment where we again encourage states to be those laboratories of democracy and innovation that our founders contemplated.
INSKEEP: They're now, of course, laboratories of debate on abortion. And abortion was on the ballot in a number of states this fall. In numerous states, people voted, in various ways, in favor of abortion rights. And it appears that candidates who supported abortion rights did well. What message did you take from that election?
PENCE: Well, let me say, I'm pro-life. I don't apologize for it. I'll always cherish the fact that I was vice president in the administration that appointed three of the justices of the Supreme Court that gave us a new beginning for life, that returned the question of abortion to the states and to the American people, where it belongs. And all of my life, I'll - whatever role we're in, I'll look to be a voice for the right to life.
INSKEEP: You don't think that this election is the signal of where the country is going on this?
PENCE: Well, I will tell you that the common denominator for me was that Republicans who articulated their position on the right to life did well. Republicans who did not articulate their position and allowed their position to be defined did not do as well. And the truth is that the Democratic Party today supports abortion on demand up to the moment of birth and taxpayer funding of abortion. Those are positions that are supported by about one out of four Americans. I truly believe that this is a pro-life country. We're still divided on the issue, Steve.
INSKEEP: I should mention, President Biden has said the Roe v. Wade standard is the one that he would approve, which is a little different than abortion on demand up to the moment of birth.
PENCE: It is - I will tell you, the Democratic Party have been very clear in their position on this. And I believe that the candidates that articulated their position on life - wherever that was, protecting the unborn - fared better than Democrat candidates in race after race. But, look; I want to concede a point that we have a ways to go in this issue. But I believe that in the most prosperous nation on Earth, we ought to be a nation that is grounded in the unalienable right to life.
INSKEEP: Mr. Vice President, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
PENCE: Steve, thank you. It's good to be with you.
INSKEEP: Former Vice President Mike Pence speaking here in Indianapolis on Monday.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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