Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rhetoric about his vice president has been well documented. After weeks of private and public lobbying, the Republican targeted Mike Pence in his pre-riot remarks that riled up his radicalized supporters, only to make matters worse with a tweet during the attack on the Capitol that insisted that the then-vice president lacked the “courage” to overturn the election.
In the months that followed, Trump’s antipathy toward Pence didn’t change. In March 2021, for example, he sat down with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl and defended rioters’ “hang Mike Pence” chants, describing the mantra as “common sense.” More than a year later, in June 2022, the Republican headlined a far-right gathering and again targeted his vice president, telling supporters that “Mike did not have the courage to act.”
Very recently, however, Trump decided to adopt an entirely different attitude toward Pence. The Hill reported:
Former President Trump touted former Vice President Mike Pence as an “honorable man” on Friday, following reports that Pence had received a subpoena from the Department of Justice’s special counsel investigating Trump on multiple fronts. “Mike Pence is an honorable man,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Friday.
After roughly two years in which the former president had little to say about the former vice president that was positive, Trump has changed his tune quite suddenly. In addition to praising Pence as an “honorable man” late last week, Trump also recently published an item to his social media platform that referred to Pence’s classified documents controversy: “Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!”
Shortly before midnight on Friday, Trump published another missive, and this one demanded that special counsel Jack Smith investigate a series of ridiculous conspiracy theories, instead of pressing “a very decent Mike Pence” for answers.
It was a telling message — because it helped shed light on why the former president now has complimentary things to say about the Republican Hoosier. We learned just last week that the special counsel’s office has subpoenaed Pence, seeking his testimony as part of the criminal investigation into Trump’s alleged Jan. 6 misconduct. It was right around this time that the former president switched gears, shifting from calling the former vice president a coward who deserved to be hunted to celebrating Pence as a “decent” and “honorable” man who should be left “alone.” It’s almost as if Trump suddenly became concerned about what Pence might tell the Justice Department while under oath. NBC News reported over the weekend that the former president’s legal team is expected to fight Pence’s subpoena on executive privilege grounds. As for whether that fight is likely to succeed, my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin made a very persuasive case that in a fight over executive privilege, Smith is likely to prevail. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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