Donald Trump (left), Mike Pence.Photo: Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty; Alex Wong/Getty
According to testimonies that aired during a House hearing Thursday from former aides toDonald Trump, the former president was angry on the morning of Jan. 6 — and he directed most of his ire at his own vice president.
Former aides and those close to Trump, including daughterIvanka Trump, attorneyRudy Giuliani, former assistant Nicholas Luna, and Ivanka’s chief of staff Julie Radford, testified beforethe U.S. House committee investigating the riots of Jan. 6, 2021that the former president had a phone call withMike Pencethe morning of Jan. 6.
“The conversation was … was pretty heated,” Ivanka said, in pre-recorded video testimony. “It was a different tone than I’d heard him take with the vice president before.”
Luna offered further details, saying, “I remember hearing the word ‘wimp.’ Either he called him a wimp — I don’t remember if he said, ‘you are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp’ — wimp is the word I remember.”
According to Radford, Trump called Pence “the P-word.”
The Thursday hearing also offered new details about Pence’s whereabouts as the pro-Trump rioters overtook the Capitol.
In a photo taken after the Capitol was breached and shown in the hearing on Thursday, Pence can be seen hiding in asecure location beneath the building, where he remained for hours until he could safely return to preside over the certification of the election for Joe Biden. Trump reportedly did not call Pence at all during the riot.
In day one of the public hearings, Vice Chair Liz Cheney — the top Republican on the House committee — said that witness testimony revealed that Trump “‘didn’t really want to put anything out,’ calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave. You will hear that President Trump was yelling, and ‘really angry at advisors who told him he needed to be doing something more.'”
She continued: “And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the President responded with this sentiment, ‘maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it.”
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Speaking on Fox News in January, Pence said he hadn’t spoken to his former boss since “last summer.”
“And you know I’ve said many times, it was difficult, Jan. 6 was difficult,” he told told Fox Newshost Jesse WattersonJesse Watters Primetime. “It was a tragic day in the life of the nation.”
Pence continued: “I know I did my duty under the Constitution of the United States, but the president and I sat down in the days that followed that, we spoke about it, talked through it, we parted amicably.”
source: people.com
