The rift between Mike Pence and Donald Trump grows
"After all the things I've done for him!" The US Vice President complained to Senator Jim Inhofe. The first president, for his part, felt betrayed because he did not agree to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which ones should not, and thus block the election of Joe Biden
No one ever said they were made for each other: a conservative Republican Party evangelist, former governor of Indiana, and a high-profile New York businessman, three-time married and reality TV star, who was once he enrolled in the Democratic Party although he became president of the United States as a Republican. But Mike Pence and Donald Trump had a political marriage of convenience for four years that worked smoothly, and with enormous loyalty in bad times - there were many, including impeachment and a pandemic - to the point that it seemed to have been forgotten. that during the interns, Pence had endorsed Ted Cruz.
After the events of Wednesday, however, a great distance between them seems to have grown, according to media such as The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) or Business Insider; According to Fox News commentator Steve Doocy, instead, the friendship is simply "over."
Those were tragic hours for democracy in the United States, after Pence ignored Trump's requests that he refuse to certify Joe Biden's electoral victory and Trump speak at a march in Washington DC that led to an attack on the Capitol.
As a result, each seems to feel betrayed by the other.
"After all the things I've done for him!" Pence lamented to Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.
Trump, for his part, was upset at the last lunch they shared, in which Pence explained to him why it was not possible to legally alter the result of the elections: the constitution establishes that only Congress has the power to object what the state. "I don't want to be your friend," Trump refused to listen. "I want you to be the vice president."
The rift closed weeks of enormous tension between the president and the vice, which mainly left Pence between a rock and a hard place. "I believe that my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution prevents me from granting myself the unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not," argued Pence in a letter.
"Some senior advisers have said that Trump has been out of control for weeks, but he now directs much of his anger at the now loyal vice president," Business Insider posted. The president would see in his second the culprit for his defeat.
On Wednesday, at the march in which he spoke to his fans, Trump said: "Mike Pence is going to have to come for us," even though he already knew that the vice president intended to respect the constitution. "And if he doesn't, it will be a sad day for our country." He also tweeted, in a message that was later blocked on the platform: “If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. He has the full right to do so. "
As they headed to storm the Capitol, pro-Trump activists "erupted into a boisterous chant: 'Where's Mike Pence?'" Business Insider recalled. But while the violent events were happening, Trump did not communicate with the second of him. "Were you concerned that an angry mob he told to march to the Capitol might hurt the vice president or his family?" A source close to Pence later said, alluding to Karen Pence and her daughter, Charlotte, having accompanied to the vice president for the act of certification of the electoral result.
In addition, Trump ordered that Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, who he held responsible for giving the legal advice that founded his decision to certify Biden's victory, be barred from entering the White House.
“Mike Pence did not have the courage to do what he should have done to protect our country and our constitution, giving states the opportunity to certify corrected data, not the fraudulent or inaccurate they were asked to certify before. America demands the truth! ”Trump tweeted and was suspended from the platform.
Pence, sparingly, also resorted to Twitter to express himself: "Peaceful protest is the right of every citizen, but this attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated, and those involved in it will be prosecuted with all the rigor of the law." Also without making a fuss, he refused to apply the twenty-fifth amendment to the constitution to Trump and remove him from office, as requested - among others - by the leaders of the Democratic Party.
According to the AP, a top Republican congressional aide said the relationship between Trump and Pence "is pretty complicated right now." The agency also cited people close to the vice president who described him as "hurt" and "angry."
It is not the first time that the relationship between the two leaders of the American executive branch has grated: Dwight Eisenhower never hid his dislike of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson treated Hubert Humphrey with disdain. However, Pence worked to defend the president's actions, to softly interpret his rhetoric against international leaders, and to take on some of the government's toughest projects, such as responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
But when Trump and his lawyers pressured him during days of phone calls and meetings, arguing about the possibility that the vice president of the United States would reject the certification of the votes of the states, Pence consulted his own legal team and constitutional scholars, among others. , and made the decision for himself to obey the founding law of the country. Trump "was furious," according to a WSJ source, when Pence told him that acceding to his wish "would set a bad precedent."
On Wednesday 6, blocked on social media, Trump spent the day in the White House, as described by some advisers to the newspaper, "increasingly angry and isolated." On Thursday he spoke by phone to the Republican National Committee members attending the Florida winter meeting and thanked donors, but did not mention the violence on Capitol Hill. He then presented the Medal of Freedom to golfers Annika Sorenstam and Gary Player, in a private ceremony.
“In times of crisis in the past, the president often spent hours on the phone, calling dozens of friends and advisers to ask their opinion. That was not the case on Wednesday and Thursday, the advisers said, as several of his closest advisers publicly condemned his response to the riots, ”WSJ detailed. "He also rejected calls from advisers, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said that on Wednesday he spent 25 minutes trying to reach the president to urge him to call for the violence to end."
One of those aides who spoke to the newspaper described Trump as "seriously down," "consumed by the loss of the election" and "angry at the vice president," as well as "in bunker mode."
He could hardly have helped that, while several of his officials resigned - the first, Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, wife of Senator Mitch McConnell -, some of his staunchest defenders criticized him. Senator Lindsey Graham, notable among them, said: “Don't count on me anymore. It was enough ”.
And if that had not been enough, he celebrated Pence: “In this debacle of the last week there is one person who, for me, stands out above the others. And it's Vice President Mike Pence, ”said the South Carolina Republican. "The things that were said about him, the things that they asked him to do in the name of loyalty, were excessive, unconstitutional, illegal and would have been bad for the country."
The former Indiana governor had forged, as Tim Phillips, president of the libertarian group Americans for Prosperity described, "a lasting and close relationship with the president," despite his differences in styles and beliefs. However, four years after he started, he seems to come, along with his mandate, to a hasty end.
