Trump says he feels 'badly' for Pence in post-indictment jab
Former President Trump on Thursday took a dig at his former vice president after Mike Pence argued publicly that Trump was wrong to try and overturn the 2020 election results and was unfit to serve again in the White House because of it.
Trump took aim at Pence in a pair of posts on Truth Social around the same time Pence was speaking to reporters from the Indiana State Fair and appearing on Fox News to address an indictment against Trump for efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.
In the first post, Trump blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is running second behind Trump in most GOP primary polls, before taking a swipe at Pence, who is also running for the nomination.
"Like Mike Pence, who I took from a flawed and failing gubernatorial re-elect campaign in the Great State of Indiana to make my V.P., Ron is a very disloyal guy who has taken bad advice!" Trump wrote.
In a second Truth Social post, Trump wrote: "I feel badly for Mike Pence, who is attracting no crowds, enthusiasm, or loyalty from people who, as a member of the Trump Administration, should be loving him."
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, went on to claim once again that the vice president had the power to intervene in the election results, something Pence and legal scholars have repeatedly said was not the case.
A grand jury indicted Trump on Tuesday on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Prosecutors allege Trump knowingly pushed false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that he had actually won.
The indictment details how co-conspirators and Trump pushed the idea that Pence could unilaterally reject or return electoral votes during the Jan. 6 certification, something Pence said he did not have the authority to do.
Pence, who is polling in the single digits in GOP primary polls, argued when he launched his campaign in June that Trump’s actions Jan. 6 were disqualifying, because he put himself above the Constitution.
“For my part, I want people to know that I had no right to overturn the election and that what the president maintained that day, and frankly has said over and over again over the last two-and-a-half years, is completely false,” Pence said Wednesday at the Indiana State Fair. “And it’s contrary to what our Constitution and the laws of this country provide.”
“You know, I’m a student of American history. And the first time I heard in early December somebody suggest that as vice president I might be able to decide which votes to reject and which to accept, I knew that it was false. … I dismissed it out of hand,” Pence added. “Sadly, the president was surrounded by a group of crackpot lawyers that kept telling him what his itching ears wanted to hear.”