(PresidentialInsider.com)- It seems as though the once-strong relationship between the former president and his former vice president still is very much strained, a little more than a year since the administration left the White House.
Late last week, Mike Pence said he’s hasn’t spoken with his former boss, Donald Trump, since “last summer.”
The relationship between the two started to fracture following the 2020 presidential election. For the most part, Pence distanced himself from claims that the election was stolen from the Trump-Pence ticket. Then, the final dagger was when Pence refused to stop the certification of the Electoral College results in his role as president of the Senate.
Speaking with Jesse Watters of Fox News last Thursday, Pence said January 6 was indeed “difficult.”
He said he spoke with Trump in the few days after that now-infamous day. Pence said he and Trump definitely didn’t see eye-to-eye on what happened on January 6, but the vice president told Waters he knows that he did his “duty under the Constitution.”
Pence also said he and Trump parted ways amicably that day. Still, it’s been more than six months now since the two have spoken.
One of the hallmarks of Trump’s approach to politics is that he has demanded loyalty from those who are with him. When Pence didn’t show him that unfettered loyalty, by going ahead and certifying the results and then defending his actions, he was all but done in Trump’s mind.
Since he left the White House in January of 2021, Trump has publicly said that he at least partially blames Pence for Democrats being able to push their “socialistic” policies through in Washington. If Pence had acted how Trump wanted him to, Trump said he’d be president now instead of Joe Biden.
Despite facing consistent pressure and criticism from Trump and his supporters, Pence has remained steadfast that he did the right thing on January 6. He said if he had rejected the votes sent by the states, it would have been “un-American” of him. He added that America’s founding fathers were “very clear” that all elections are to be governed by the states and not the federal government.
The vice president has admitted that it’s very unlikely he and Trump would ever agree on the events of January 6, but he still has never criticized his former boss for his role in the day.
Instead, the former vice president has consistently said that he’s proud of the work the Trump administration did while they were in office, and that life in America was considerably better under them than it is now under the Biden administration.
While neither man has officially announced their intentions, both Trump and Pence are being considered serious candidates for the 2024 presidential election. There was a point where it would have been unthinkable for the two men to face off against each other in a presidential election, but things have certainly changed in the last year.
