'It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,' Pence wrote. Trump erroneously maintained that Pence had the ability to unilaterally change the election result, while Pence demurred in an 11-page letter sent to the president just before Wednesday's rally and riot.

The president and the vice president had enjoyed a relatively good relationship until recently - what Tim Phillips, the president of the libertarian group Americans for Prosperity, described to The Washington Post as 'a durable, close relationship,' despite their clear stylistic differences and beliefs.īut as Trump slipped further and further into the baseless belief that there was widespread election fraud, a rift grew between the two. 'He didn't want to feel like we would allow that to happen in our country.' Trump's silent treatment of Pence called 'unconscionable' 'During the moment of the evacuation, he was adamant about staying in the building and not being taken away,' Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, told Insider on Friday. Pence was safely ferreted off the Senate floor by the Secret Service and was hidden in a secure location during the attack, which left five people, including a police officer, dead. Several insurrectionists shared online that they hoped to kill or wound the vice president, and chants of ' Hang Mike Pence' could be heard throughout the Capitol during the riot. Trump's words had the effect of turning Pence into the enemy. 'And if it doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country.' 'Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us,' Trump told the crowd. ET as the mob of his supporters was breaching the building.Įarlier in the day, he had discussed the vice president during a rally with supporters near the White House, putting the success or failure of his plan to dispute the election on Pence's shoulders. USA demands the truth!' Trump wrote at 2:24 p.m. 'Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. While hundreds of Trump's followers forced their way inside the Capitol, the president took a few moments during the siege to attack the vice president, who had distanced himself from the president's baseless claims of election fraud and ultimately refused to challenge the congressional certification of the election. On Wednesday, as a mob of his supporters staged a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, President Donald Trump was tweeting - not in support of the hundreds of members of Congress trapped within the building, but against Vice President Mike Pence. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Sign up here for our new newsletter 10 Things in Politics You Need to Know Today Trump tweeted condemnation of Pence even as the president's supporters stormed the building. Pence was in the building during the insurrection and was pursued by the pro-Trump mob over his refusal to interfere with the certification of the US election, a point Trump brought up to his followers several times. President Donald Trump did not speak with Vice President Mike Pence for several days after the siege at the Capitol.

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