Former Vice President Mike Pence stunned CNN’s Dana Bash over the weekend when he said he was unconcerned by Donald Trump’s veiled threat about what his supporters might do should he be sentenced to jail.
The twice-indicted former president had told an Iowa radio station last week that the possibility of jail time was a “very dangerous thing to even talk about, because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters.”
Pence ― whose security detail reportedly called family members to say goodbye during the U.S. Capitol riot carried out by some of those voters ― told CNN over the weekend that Trump’s rhetoric “doesn’t worry me” because “I have more confidence in the American people and in the people in our movement.”
“Virtually everyone in our movement are the kind of Americans who love this country, are patriotic, are law-and-order people, who would never have done anything like that,” he said, referring to the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I hear my former running mate’s frustration in his voice, but I’m sure the American people will respond in our movement in a way that will express ― as they have every right to under the First Amendment ― to express concerns that they have about what they perceive to be unequal treatment of the law,” Pence continued.
Bash seemed shocked by the answer.
“That’s pretty remarkable that you’re not concerned about it, given the fact that they wanted to hang you on Jan. 6,” she replied.
Pence pushed back, arguing it was unfair to “take those that perpetrated violence on Jan. 6 and use a broad brush to describe everyone in our movement.”
After rioters stormed the Capitol in 2021, Secret Service rushed Pence to a secure area near the Senate floor. The intruders came within 40 feet of him before he was evacuated.
A gallows was erected outside the building, where some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” because he had been presiding over the certification of the 2020 electoral results that Trump didn’t like.
Trump has since been indicted twice: first, in March, in a state-level case in New York over an alleged hush money scheme that may have influenced the 2016 election, and again in June in a federal investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
He is also a target of a federal probe into Jan. 6, 2021, and could potentially be indicted a third time as part of that investigation.