Book cites Pence’s notes from call with Trump, who called vice-president a ‘wimp’ if he certified Biden’s 2020 victory
On the day that his supporters attacked the US Capitol because his 2020 re-election run ended in defeat, Donald Trump called his vice-president at the time, Mike Pence, and told him he would go down in history as a “wimp” if he certified the election result, a new book says.
Those details were revealed on Sunday when ABC News published a preview excerpt of an upcoming book by its political correspondent Jonathan Karl. The book, titled Retribution, cites Pence’s notes from the 6 January 2021 phone call with Trump, who was purportedly trying to shame his vice-president into refusing to certify Joe Biden’s victory weeks earlier in the White House.
“If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago,” Trump is said to have told Pence, who was his running mate when he won his first presidency in 2016. “You’ll go down as a wimp.”
According to Retribution, before he ultimately fulfilled his duty of certifying Biden’s victory, Pence’s notes maintain that he told Trump both had taken “an oath to support + defend the constitution”.
