Wildly Imaginative Pence ‘Hoped’ Trump Would ‘Come Around’ and Accept 2020 Election Results

Despite years of experience with him, Trump’s former vice president claimed he still held out hope that Trump would accept his electoral loss

Former Vice President Mike Pence claimed that in the waning days of the Trump administration, he “hoped” that Trump would eventually “come around” and accept the results of his loss in the 2020 election.

“I always hoped [Trump] would come around. … No one who puts himself over the Constitution should ever be president,” Pence told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on Sunday.

Pence also claimed that, “at the end of the day, he did” accept his loss. While Trump may have left the White House without requiring Secret Service to remove him forcibly from the building, Trump still maintains that there was widespread corruption in the electoral process despite having no evidence to prove it, and as recently as last year demanded an “immediate” redo of the 2020 election. So did Trump really “accept” his loss in the way Pence claims?

Referring to Trump’s hopes that Pence could unilaterally declare him the winner of the election on Jan. 6, the former vice president said, “I had hoped that President Trump would eventually see that he’d been misled by the so-called legal experts that had advised him wrongly about the role that he thought I had, and still thinks I had that day.”

Pence then went on to explain that his views differ from Trump, especially on the issue of abortion. Pence, a religious conservative, has long taken a hard line on abortion, although it seems he may have unintentionally protected abortion rights as governor of his home state of Indiana.

“After leading the most pro-life administration in American history, and now my former running mate has taken to calling some pro-life bills at the state level ‘too harsh,’” Pence claimed. “[Trump] also blamed electoral losses in 2022 on overturning Roe v. Wade. Look, I think that the cause of life has been the animating force of the conservative movement and the Republican party for 50 years.”

When discussing the charges against Trump related to his alleged mishandling of classified information, Pence said that, “The president should have the right to bring his defense in a court of law and if he’s found to be guilty, have every right, as every American does, to pursue an appeal and resolve the issue.”

But Pence then quickly pivoted to a separate issue beloved by Republicans: Hunter Biden. “I also believe the American people would be greatly heartened, given the controversy, the evidence that’s come out publicly, the Hunter Biden laptop, all the allegations, even news that broke in the last few weeks, the American people would be heartened to see the Department of Justice move against Hunter Biden, move against the accusations against the Biden family, and continue to pursue just as aggressively an investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. We’ve got to restore confidence in the rule of law.”

Biden has thus far cooperated with the investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents found in his home and office, and no charges have been filed against his son, Hunter, despite Republican efforts to smear him.