Former Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that he wasn’t sure that he and former President Donald Trump would ever see “eye to eye” over what happened on January 6 but that he would “always be proud of what we accomplished for the American people over the last four years”.
On January 6, rioters marched on the Capitol after former president Donald Trump, on social media urged his followers to ‘fight like hell’ to overturn election results. This resulted in Trump being impeached a second time, wherein he was found to be guilty of ‘incitement of insurrection’.
Pence, speaking at the Hillsborough County Republican Committee’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Awards Dinner in Manchester, said, “January 6 was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol. But thanks to the swift action of the Capitol police and federal law enforcement, violence was quelled. The Capitol was secured,” The Guardian reported.
“And that same day, we reconvened the Congress and did our duty under the constitution and the laws of the United States,” he added.
It was a rare departure for Pence, who spent four years standing loyally beside his boss amid controversy, investigation and impeachment. It comes as Pence considers his own potential 2024 White House run and as Republicans, some of whom were angry at Trump in the days after the Jan. Pence praised Trump several times during his speech that lasted nearly 35-minutes. He tried to turn the events of January 6 back around on Democrats, saying they wanted to keep the insurrection in the news to divert attention from President Joe Biden's liberal agenda.
“I will not allow Democrats or their allies in the media to use one tragic day to discredit the aspirations of millions of Americans. Or allow Democrats or their allies in the media to distract our attention from a new administration intent on dividing our country to advance the radical agenda,” Pence said. “My fellow Republicans, for our country, for our future, for our children and our grandchildren, we must move forward, united”.
Pence, hitting upon Republicans pushback against ’critical race theory’ said, “America is not a racist country.”
“It is past time for America to discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism,” Pence said. “I commend state legislators and governors across the country for banning critical race theory from our schools,” he added.
--with PTI inputs
