Trump Tolds Pence They Would Not Be Friends If The VP Did Not Turn His Back On The Election, Because He Was 5 Years Old

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In the days following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, a narrative emerged in which Donald Trump’s longtime footwork, Mike Pence, was called as something of a hero in refusing to overturn the results of election in 2020. Despite relentless pressure from the president at the time to block Joe Bidens in the election campaign, which involved alternately cajoling and browbeating the VP and telling him, You can come down to history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy, Pence officially certified the results following a brief interlude in which Trump supporters threatened to kill him.

But as it turned out, Pence came close to destroying democracy on behalf of his bosses. According to Peril, a new book next week by veteran reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Pence, in his own words, did everything he could to try to prevent the certification of a free and fair election. . Per CNN:

Even Pencestood up to Trump eventually, Peril revealed that after four years of extreme loyalty, he struggled with the decision. Woodward and Costa wrote that Pence reached out to Dan Quayle, who had been vice president to George HW Bush, asking for advice.

Repeatedly, Pence asked if he could do anything. Mike, you have no flexibility here. Nothing. Zero. Forget it Put it away, Quayle told him. Pence pressed again. You don’t know the position that Im, he said, according to the authors. I know the position you are in, Quayle replied. I also know what the law is. Listen to the parliamentarian. That’s all you do. You have no power.

When it became clear to Pence that he could not, in fact, overturn the election results, he still worked hard to explain to Trump that he wanted to be a good little solider, saying, I did all that I can and then some to find a way around it. Being aggressive, that action, was clearly not enough for Trump, who also tried to convince Pence by appealing to what he believed was everyone’s secret desire to be an authoritarian dictator. If these people say you have power, don’t you? Trump’s question, seems to refer to the majority of the people at MAGA who gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue. I wouldn’t want any one person to have that authority, Pence replied. But wouldn’t it be cool to have that strength? Trump asked, once again betraying his admiration for autocrats.

It was after Pence remained adamant, according to Woodward and Costa, that Trump proceeded with schoolyard threats. You don’t understand, Mike, Trump said. You can do it. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do it. The next day, on the morning of January 6, he reportedly called Pence and teased him, If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong guy four years ago, added, you’re going to go outside. Apparently a few hours after that Trump tried the pussy line on Pence, which clearly had no effect he expected.

The Washington Post reported that Peril also contained news that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was legitimately terrified that the president was mad to start a war with China just for shit.

In a couple of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to his Chinese counterpart, Gen Li Zuocheng of the Peoples Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike. The first call prompted Milleys to review intelligence suggesting the Chinese believe the United States is preparing to attack. That belief, the authors write, is based on the tension of excessive military force in the South China Sea, and deepened by Trumpsbelligerent rhetorictoward China.

General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything will be okay, Milley told him. We will not attack or perform any kinetic operation against you. On account of the books, Milley went so far as to promise that he would alert his counterpart in the event of an attack in the U.S., emphasizing the rapport they had established through a backchannel. General Li, you and I have known each other for five years now. If attacked, I will call you in advance. It will not be a surprise.

On the second call, placed to address Chinese fears about the events on January 6, Li was not easily provoked, even though Milley promised him, We are 100 percent stable. All is well. But democracy can be flawed at times. Li remained cluttered, and Milley, who had not been able to convey the conversation to Trump, according to the book, understood why. The chairman, 62 at the time and elected by Trump in 2018, believes the president suffered a mental decline after the election, the authors wrote, a view he shared with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D -Calif.) On the aphone callon Jan. 8. He agreed with his analysis that Trump was unstable, according to a transcript of the call obtained by the authors.

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