Former President Donald Trump was called out for blatant hypocrisy after complaining to Fox News about the "horrible" way Vice President Kamala Harris treated former Vice President Mike Pence during the 2020 vice-presidential debate—only to be reminded of his own actions against his ex-running mate.
Trump, during an appearance on Fox News's Life, Liberty and Levin with host Mark Levin, referenced the viral moment from the 2020 vice presidential debate when Harris famously responded to Pence's interruption with, "Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking."
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He said:
“Now they [Democrats] have Kamala, who they say has many deficiencies, but she’s a nasty person. The way she treated Mike Pence was horrible. The way she treats people is horrible."
You can hear what Trump said in the video below.
While Trump also griped that Harris treated Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh with "viciousness and violence" when she grilled him during his 2018 confirmation hearings, it was his statements about Pence that really raised eyebrows.
Trump and Pence have been distant since the former vice president declined to overturn then-candidate Joe Biden's 2020 election win. Moreover, Pence could have been killed on January 6, 2021, the day a mob of Trump's supporters stormed the United States Capitol on the false premise that the 2020 election had been stolen.
Video footage from that day shows the angry mob chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" and "Bring out Pence!" as they search for him through the halls of the Capitol. And just outside, the mob had set up a makeshift gallows.
In fact, critics have posited that J.D. Vance, Trump's current running mate, would never have been chosen if the former president's supporters had not called for Pence's execution for refusing to do Trump's bidding.
Trump was swiftly called out.
While Pence has yet to publicly comment on Trump's selection of Vance, the former vice president has stated that he will not endorse him for president in November's election.
In a recent Fox News interview, he said, "It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," adding:
“Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years. And that’s why I cannot, in good conscience, endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”
Pence's comments are a far cry from his prior spirited defense of his former boss, such as when he criticized the media for focusing on "one day in January."
At the time, Pence suggested that Democrats are trying "to demean the character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported us in 2016 and 2020 but for our part I truly believe we all ought to remain completely focused on the future."
He has often been accused of playing both sides, given other remarks he's made, including when he acknowledged that he and Trump would never "see eye to eye" on January 6, which he referred to as "a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol."