Magadoneans called Mike Pence a traitor Thursday for not doing what the former vice president has insisted he could not do, which is to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by rejecting certain electors when Congress gathered to certify Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence was campaigning at the Iowa State Fair when a group of Trump supporters mimicked their candidate and began heckling him with insults as he walked by.
“Trump 2024!” shouted a man rocking a MAGA hat and a “Team Trump” shirt.
A woman wearing the same shirt called out, “Vote for MAGA every day! Pence is a traitor!” She also claimed he was “not a Christian.”
She continued to scream at Pence as his entourage moved away.
Some Trump supporters heckle Mike Pence as he arrives to a radio interview at the State Fair. “Pence is a traitor!” one yells. Appears like they were waiting for him. pic.twitter.com/0SDwI7d9d5
— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) August 10, 2023
The issue came up when Pence took the stage of Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox, when a man asked, “Why did you commit treason on January 6 and not stand by President Trump?”
In a reflection of the division within the GOP over Trump, an audience member up front stood up and angrily shouted the man down, “I’m a veteran buddy, shut your mouth!”
“That’s a fair question. Look, come on people, that’s why I came,” Pence interjected.
“Why did you commit treason on Jan. 6?” man asks Mike Pence at State Fair. Another man shouts the questioner down. Pence responds: pic.twitter.com/8ochbfyolu
— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) August 10, 2023
Stating that he took an oath to support the Constitution as vice president, Pence said that was “a promose I made to the American people, a promise I made to Almighty God.”
“Now I know you might have a different impression about what my duties and responsibilities were on January 6 and I’m happy to talk to you about them,” he said, explaining that states certify the election.
He said Article II of the Consitition clearly say that as vice president he “shall” count the Electoral College votes.
“It doesn’t say may, it doesn’t say you can send them back to the states, it doesn’t say you can reject votes, even though my former running mate and many of his outside lawyers told me that that authority was there, I knew there never was,” Pence insisted.
“I mean look there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could pick the American president,” he added.
Pence spoke to reporters afterwards and addressed the issue again.
“I understand the disappointment with the election in 2020, remember I was on the ballot,” he said, according to the Daily Mail. “But our country is more important than any one man, our Constitution is more important than one man’s career – including mine – so I’m going to continue to tell the truth about what I did that day and why I did it.”
“But I will tell you, stepping off, I have to tell you, I occassionally hear people ask questions like that, I’m always more than happy to answer,” Pence said. “But the vast majority of people who speak to me about that painful day thank me.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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