Donald Trump said Saturday that President Joe Biden had not done enough to combat antisemitism across the United States in the face of Israel’s war with Hamas as the former president reaffirmed his staunch support for Israel and Jewish Americans following backlash over his recent criticism of Israel...
“Because I had a great successful presidency, and he was the vice president, he should endorse me,” said Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nod. “I chose him, made him vice president. But … people in politics can be very disloyal. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Pence was Trump’s loyal soldier during their tenure in office but encountered Trump’s ire when he refused to bow to his boss’s pressure campaign to block the results of the 2020 election in his capacity as vice president overseeing Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
During the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” Videos from the Capitol during the riot show a man with a bullhorn, reading the tweet aloud to others in the mob. Inside, rioters swarmed the hallways, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Trump tweeted that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
Trump is so unprincipled that he managed to get it exactly backwards. January 6 is the one time Pence actually stood up and did the right thing. I loathe the man, but I won't deny him credit where it's due. I can't even begin to imagine the level of chaos if he had gone along with Trump and his followers and refused to certify the 2020 election results.
Trump usually does get it exactly backwards, to be fair. If he's accusing someone of something, it's because he's doing it. If he's claiming something, it's probably the opposite of the truth. He's remarkably consistent about it.
Historically the Republican candidates have demonstrated enviable party discipline and fallen in line after the nominee has been chosen, but Trump and the rest of the MAGA crowd have shown themselves to be so duplicitous that they won’t even honor agreements made with other Republicans. The more mainstream candidates like Pence may just figure that this time around there’s nothing in it for them, that they won’t get anything from Trump in return for their endorsement, not even goodwill.
Of course he would. The Republican Party doesn’t believe in cause and effect. It’s like my dysfunctional family where everyone says and does hurtful things but we’re so dissociated we choose to let the bullshit slide and the drama continue. The only way to win is to not play, but no one has the balls to do it.