Given his years-long run as Donald Trump’s Vice President, it’s easy to equate Mike Pence with the same kind of MAGA loyalism as Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert.
His tenure as Vice President was marked by a hateful campaign to destroy LGBTQ+ rights, but a recent resurfaced video of the politician has reminded us that on one specific topic he was on the right side of history.
In a clip doing the rounds on TikTok, Pence is seen offering his thoughts on Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. His refusal to do so made him public enemy number one for both Trump and his supporters, leading to his ousting from the Republican inner circle and Trump-led chants for him to be hanged.
“I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence says in the resurfaced clip. “President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution, but I chose the Constitution.” Pence went on to say that anyone who favors themselves over the Constitution “should not be President of the United States,” and added that Trump’s claims of a rigged election were “completely false.”
Pence’s comments are from a 2023 interview after Trump was indicted on charges related to trying to overturn the election results. The indictment revealed that Trump relied on Pence to achieve his goal of refusing to certify the results of the election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden. Pence was even called to testify in front of a grand jury as part of that indictment, kickstarting an opposition to his former boss which continues to this day.
In March, Pence declared that he wouldn’t be endorsing Trump’s presidential bid, and the politician’s shifting sentiment has been noticed online. “Even Mike Pence doesn’t want Trump to be President again,” one user commented on the resurfaced clip, “let that sink in.” Others said the former VP’s opposition to Trump is “telling”, describing his comments as a “Rare Mike pence W.”
“[Pence] is the most qualified person to say Trump is unqualified,” another user wrote. Pence’s comments — which mark the first time a VP has said their boss isn’t fit to run for president — are a welcome reminder of his role in exposing Trump’s track record from the inside, though he’s far from the only Republican to call out the party’s unshakable top dog.
Alongside Pence, fellow high-profile Republicans Mitt Romney and William Barr are among those who’ve refused to endorse Trump, while the likes of Liz Cheney and Susan Collins were notably absent from this year’s Republican National Convention.