WASHINGTON–Former Vice Pres. Mike Pence felt he had to forgive former Pres. Donald Trump, even though he was angry about seeing rioters enter the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and his feeling that Trump had asked him to set aside Constructional principles to try and overturn the election.
“My faith requires forgiveness,” he told WIBC host Tony Katz, Tuesday, while discussion his book “So Help Me God”. “So, I prayed for the grace to do that.”
He said the president reached out five days later through his family. “I told his family I’d hear him out,” said Pence.
Pence said he agreed to meet with Trump in part because the then-president “said all the right things”, like condemning the rioters and that he was committed to the peaceful transition of power.
“I could tell the president was saddened about what happened,” he said. He said Trump first asked about Pence’s wife and daughter, if they were okay.
“He asked if I was scared, and I said, ‘No, Mr. President, I was angry.” I was angry about our difference, I told him I was angry at what I saw, people rioting at the Capitol.
Pence told Katz that he did not believe he had the authority to do what Trump had asked, to return the electoral votes to the states, essentially overturning the election. He said that Trump got bad legal advice from out side attorneys and people Pence said should have never been allowed at the White House.
Pence said the two were able to iron out their differences to some degree in their final meeting.
“In the days that followed, while we spoke from time to time, when the president returned to some of the rhetoric that he was using before that day, when he returned to questioning what I had done in upholding the Constitution, I thought it was just best that we go our separate ways. And we have.”
