Pence Vows to Avoid Engaging in Personal Attacks with Trump

(LibertySociety.com) – Former Vice President Mike Pence recently sat for an interview with ABC News, where he claimed that he would not be taking personal digs at former President Trump on the campaign trail. The interview aired on August 14, just a few days after he visited the Iowa State Fair. ABC’s Linsey Davis traveled to Iowa to do the interview, where the pair seemingly ignored all criticism of Trump that Pence has voiced in recent weeks. Davis made sure to ask Pence if he had a response to Trump’s recent Truth Social post about him. She ignored that Trump’s claim of Pence going to “the dark side” was in response to Pence’s statement about Trump’s indictment for the events surrounding January 6, 2021, and the 2020 presidential election.

Instead, Davis attempted to paint Trump’s accusation about Pence as an unfounded attack on him. While she spoke about Pence’s statement about the indictment, she did not tie Trump’s response to it. Pence said that Trump asked him to choose him over the Constitution, adding that anyone who does that “should never be President of the United States.” Trump maintains that he never asked Pence to do such a thing, blaming Pence for getting bad advice from his advisers.

Pence has stated on multiple occasions that he had no authority to overturn the results of the election, which to many, is a distortion of what he was actually asked to do. Trump wanted Pence to allow certain electors to be sent back to their designated states to allow the state legislatures time to investigate the fraud allegations. Pence told Davis that there were irregularities in the 2020 election but said that there was not enough fraud to change the outcome. He did offer a defense of the former president when he said that he believed that Trump’s indictment in Manhattan was politically motivated, noting that he was one of the first people to criticize the charges. He also blasted the unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago and expressed pride in the accomplishments of the Trump administration. Pence is still currently polling in the single digits.