Former Vice President Mike Pence delivered his harshest rebuke yet of former President Donald Trump over the weekend for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Pence made the comments while speaking at the annual Gridiron Club Dinner, a white-tie event thrown by Washington, D.C. journalists and attended by high-profile Beltway figures. The exclusive soiree is known for politicians poking fun at each other and members of the D.C. press corps taking part in skits. This year featured speeches from Pence, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. The former vice president used the platform to issue his strongest criticism to date of his ex-boss as the two inch toward their anticipated 2024 rivalry.
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“President Trump was wrong,” Pence told the hushed crowd. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
“The American people have a right to know what took place at the Capitol on January 6th,” he said later on as he closed his speech. “But make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way.”
While Pence had grown somewhat critical of the former president in recent months, Saturday’s speech marked his most pointed condemnation of Trump since their working relationship and overall political alliance crumbled at the end of their administration.
Pence largely avoided discussing what occurred between him and Trump, instead quietly keeping his distance until after last year’s midterm elections. Their feud occasionally re-emerged in the news cycle at the time, when the two would endorse opposing candidates in GOP primaries. The primary contests both served as a litmus test for Trump and Pence’s respective holds on the GOP and highlighted the divisions that developed between them.
He eventually told of the months-long pressure campaign he faced under the then-president as he refused to recognize their election loss or accept his inability to overturn it in his memoir, released one week after the midterms.
The former VP appears to be on the verge of launching his own presidential bid, meaning he will find himself competing with his ex-boss. While he has yet to declare for the 2024 cycle, Trump was the first to throw his hat in the ring.
In a lighthearted moment during his Saturday address, Pence brought up the issue of endorsing the 2024 Republican presidential nominee in what appeared to be a nod at his own candidacy, pledging, “I will wholeheartedly, unreservedly support the Republican nominee for president in 2024…if it’s me.”
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He also took another shot at Trump, this time over his handling of classified documents.
“I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president’s Bible,” Pence said. “Which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.”
