Pence Refuses to Acknowledge Jan. 6 Was Anything More Than a Riot

Tucker Carlson took a break from filming Twitter videos to emcee for the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa on Friday, where he interviewed several Republican 2024 candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence. 

Pence, who was threatened with death by a violent mob supporting his former boss Donald Trump on Jan. 6, once again demonstrated that he lacks the backbone to accurately describe the violent riot in the Capitol as an attempted insurrection. 

“What was that? Do you think that was an insurrection?” Carlson asked. 

Pence stalled as Carlson giggled in the background, before finally answering that all he “knows for sure” is that Jan. 6 was “a tragic day.” 

“I’ve never used the word insurrection, Tucker, over the last two years,” Pence said. “It was a riot that took place in the Capitol that day.”

But even that answer may be too much for Carlson, who previously described Jan. 6 as nothing more than a friendly visit from “orderly and meek” sightseers.

Pence went on to tout that he’d done his “constitutional duty” by certifying the election. The former vice president was a central component of the right-wing plot to usurp the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6 by putting forth an alternate docket of fake, pro-Trump electors. Pence’s refusal to participate in the scheme and usurp the election results (a bare minimum fulfillment of his constitutional oath) drew Trump’s ire and led the rioters to call for his hanging.  

Carlson went on to ask Pence why he thought the mob was “mad,” and wondered “why we haven’t talked about that?”  

Pence replied by accusing the Jan. 6 Committee of failing “its historic mission of bringing the facts forward” by focusing too much on Trump and not enough on the failure of law enforcement to prevent the attack. He also lauded Carlson’s “commitment to bringing all of the facts to the American people.” Speaking of facts, It’s worth mentioning that Carlson has been a key figure in two defamation lawsuits against his former employer, Fox News. One over defamatory and misleading coverage of the 2020 election, which resulted in Fox agreeing to a $787.5 million dollar settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, and another brought this week by a former fan who Carlson publicly accused of being an undercover federal agent and orchestrating the riot. 

This is not the first time Pence has downplayed the threats he and his family, who were visiting the Capitol on Jan. 6, lived through. He has repeatedly accused Trump of endangering his family, yet refuses to say outright that he should be held responsible for the attack. He’s also refused to rule out supporting Trump in the 2024 election.

While Pence would love to present himself as an alternative to Trump, the former president’s base has not been swayed in favor of the man they believe cost them their last chance to forcibly continue the Trump presidency. Trump has been raking in tens of millions of dollars every fundraising quarter this year. By comparison, Pence raised a measly $3.8 million in the third quarter, only slightly more than half of his polling average.