Donald Trump warned Mike Pence that he’d be remembered as a “wimp” after the then-vice president refused to block Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, according to a new book.
Pence’s previously unseen notes from Jan. 6, 2021, have been published in Retribution, a new book by ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Just before Trump took the stage at the infamous “Save America” rally that preceded the Capitol attack, he reportedly made one last call to pressure Pence into overturning his loss to Biden.
But Pence informed Trump that he would let the election results be certified.
“You’ll go down as a wimp,” Trump told Pence in response, according to handwritten notes about the call on the morning of Jan. 6. “If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago.”
The president is also said to have told his vice president, “You listen to the wrong people,” according to Retribution. In Pence’s notes, a rough sketch of an angry emoji reportedly appears beside the comment.
“You’re not protecting our country, you’re supposed to support + defend our country,” Trump apparently said to Pence, according to the notes.
Pence reportedly replied, “I said we both [took] an oath to support + defend the Constitution. It doesn’t take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and a contact for Pence for comment.
Special Counsel Jack Smith planned to use the notes—written in Pence’s day planner—as evidence to support the allegation that Trump knowingly deceived his supporters to try to reverse his defeat in the election.
But Smith’s case was dismissed after Trump won the 2024 presidential race and the materials remained unreleased.
Witnesses previously testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the conversation between Trump and Pence quickly turned tense, with Trump’s former assistant, Nicholas Luna, appearing to corroborate Pence’s account.
“I remember hearing the word ‘wimp,’” Luna said in a taped deposition. “Either he called him a wimp, I don’t remember if he said, ‘You are a wimp, you’ll be a wimp.’ Wimp is the word I remember.”
Roughly an hour after making his call to Pence, Trump urged his supporters at the Ellipse to march toward the Capitol, where certification was set to take place.
Trump, 79, still refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 election and he has launched a retribution campaign against those involved in the investigation into Jan. 6.
On Friday, he called on Smith, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and “other crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden Administration” to be prosecuted, declaring, “They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election.”
There are growing fears over the 2028 election and transfer of power as Trump has frequently alluded to the possibility of a third term despite the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to a maximum of two.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Thursday that “there’s a plan” to help Trump secure a third term, saying, “Trump is gonna be president ’28 so people just ought to get accommodated with that.”
