Former Vice President Mike Pence confirmed reports that he called Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey following the 2020 election, but denied there was any pressure in his conversations with them to change the outcome of the race.
Pence also said that he did not remember receiving any pressure from former President Donald Trump to influence Ducey to substantiate claims of election fraud in the state, according to a transcript of an interview that will air Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.
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“I think the record reflects that I did check-in, with not only Gov. Ducey, but other governors in states that were going through the legal process of reviewing their election results, but there was no pressure involved,” said Pence.
The 2024 hopeful’s comments come after reports alleged Trump tried to pressure Ducey himself during a phone call following the election to help him secure a win in Arizona. The same report also claimed that while Pence called Ducey multiple times, he did not exert any pressure on the state governor himself.
Trump is under investigation by special counsel Jack Smith for a phone call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where Trump asked him to “find 11,780” votes in the state.
Pence claimed that his phone calls with the governors were “about information gathering” and said that he passed the information he learned from the phone calls to Trump.
“It was no more, no less than that,” said Pence.
The former vice president went on to say he did not remember receiving any pressure from Trump to influence Ducey, but acknowledged that he and the former president, who is also running for president in 2024, have a “strong difference” in opinion about the 2020 race.
“The president and I continue to have a strong difference,” said Pence. “I’ll always believe that by God’s grace, I did my duty under the Constitution that day in presiding over a joint session of Congress in the aftermath of the mayhem and the rioting. But in the days of November and December, this was an orderly process.”
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A spokesman for Ducey said that the report about the phone call was “neither new nor is it news to anyone.”
“The Governor stands by his action to certify the election and considers the issue to be in the rearview mirror,” said Ducey’s spokesman Daniel Scarpinato.
