Ah, Mike Pence. The answer to a question no one has even considered asking. A bowl of puffed rice with the personality of Cream of Wheat. A rugged individualist who seems equally at home glad-handing in work shirts and blue jeans as riding around in the front of Donald Trump’s suit pants like a baby kangaroo.
He’s also the guy who was nearly hanged (as in, to death) by a violent mob egged on by Trump—a feral “president” who went out of his way to highlight Pence’s “betrayal” even as he and his family were in danger of becoming so many bowls of Purina Hyena Chow.
So it only makes sense that he’d appear on ABC This Week to defend his former boss against the brutal calumnies of prosecutors who somehow got it in their heads that Trump is a dangerous, amoral criminal or something.
As New York police are forced to ponder best practices for fingerprinting snarling perps with Cheeto fetus hands, Pence is saying whatever he must to appease the people who literally wanted to murder him two years ago.
Just check out this profile in courage:
Transcript:
JONATHAN KARL (HOST): “I’m sure you’ve seen Donald Trump is saying that he’s going to be indicted on Tuesday, and he’s calling for people to protest. Now, we don’t know if that’s true. The Manhattan DA has not said anything about it, but he’s calling for people to protest. Is that irresponsible?”
MIKE PENCE: “Well, first let me say I’m taken aback at the idea of indicting a former president of the United States. At a time when there’s a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority I think just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country. It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here, and for my part I just feel like it’s just not what the American people want to see.”
Weird that he’d so vigorously defend the guy who tried to get him killed, but sure. And speak for yourself, Mike. Lots of Americans would love to see him prosecuted. Because he’s a criminal. (Allegedly!) What the American people really don’t care about are bullshit investigations into President Joe Biden and his family.
But Pence wasn’t close to done making excuses for Dear Leader:
Transcript!
KARL): “They say he’s a former president possibly about to be indicted and it’s unprecedented. Aren’t his actions unprecedented? We never saw a presidential candidate give $130,000 to a porn star to keep her from talking. I mean, these are unprecedented actions.”
PENCE: “Well, Jon, as you know, those events transpired before I even joined the national ticket, and so I can’t speak to the merits of the case ...”
KARL: “Well, the payoff happened just two weeks before the election.”
PENCE: “I can’t speak to the merits of the case, and in America you’re innocent until proven guilty. That’s not always true in the national media, but it is true in our justice system. And, look, I know that President Trump can take care of himself, and this process will play out, if in fact an indictment comes down.”
Oh, gawd. Yes, in America you are innocent until proven guilty. Thanks for the civics lesson, Mike. You’re also expected to accede to the peaceful transfer of power. In fact, that’s really fundamental to the functioning of any liberal democracy. Otherwise, you get violence and rebellion, and people end up swinging from gallows.
Speaking of getting murdered by bloodthirsty mobs, later in the interview, Karl played Trump’s answer to a question Karl had asked Trump two years ago about the serious danger Pence faced on Jan. 6. During that interview, the innocent until proven guilty ex-POTUS appeared to take the side of the mob: “Well, the people were very angry,” Trump said, before adding, “It’s common sense, Jon. It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect. How can you, if you know a vote is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?”
What say you, Mike Pence?
Transcript!
KARL: [Trump was excusing] the actions of people who were calling for you to be hanged.”
PENCE: “There’s no excuse for the violence that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and I’ll never diminish it as long as I live. But, look, I … the president’s wrong. He was wrong that day. I had actually hoped he would come around in time, Jon, that he would see that the cadre of legal advisers that he’s surrounded himself with led him astray, but he hasn’t done so, and I think it’s one of the reasons why the country just wants a fresh start.”
A fresh start? Could this be a sign that Pence really does want to run for president? After all, he’s already got the long butter knives out for the GOP frontrunner.
And, well, he’s sounding a lot like a presidential candidate, if Sunday’s The Washington Post profile about a revitalized Pence who is finally “unmoored” from Trump (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!) can be believed:
He described “some in our party” who don’t want to deal with the coming fiscal catastrophes of entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, a category that includes both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). He dismissed as a failure of American leadership DeSantis’s recent claim that the Ukraine war was merely a “territorial dispute.” And he said Republicans need to embrace the issue of abortion “now more than ever,” a subtle reference to Trump blaming abortion politics for the Republicans’ disappointing 2022 midterm results.
Ah, so he wants to run on cutting Social Security and making abortion as illegal as possible from sea to shining sea. Sounds like a sure winner!
Listen, Mike. You’re never going to be president. The best way to serve your country would be to help remove that national cancer you nourished for four-plus years. Use your words. Honestly, it’s okay to call someone out for trying to murder you. And it might feel kind of good, to boot.
Here’s the full This Week interview in case you run out of Ambien or have an inexplicable fetish for bleached-out sock puppets:
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.