- Trump likened Pence to a "human conveyer belt" during the joint session of Congress on January 6.
- Trump rejected the idea of having Pence on the ticket as his running mate if he runs in 2024.
- Trump told the Washington Examiner he still likes Pence but said he was "disappointed in Mike."
President Donald Trump likened former Vice President Mike Pence to a "human conveyer belt" for election results during the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress in a new interview with the Washington Examiner.
Trump ruled out asking Pence to be on his ticket if he runs for president again in 2024 and doubled down on his misrepresentations and false statements about the 2020 election and January 6 in the interview, which was published on Wednesday.
"I don't think the people would accept it," Trump told the Examiner's David Drucker about the idea of having Pence as his running mate.
Pence played a ceremonial role overseeing the joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes on January 6. In the days and weeks leading up to the Capitol insurrection, however, Trump and conservative legal scholar John Eastman tried to pressure Pence into "sending back" slates of electoral votes to the states in order to overturn Trump's election loss.
Pence, citing legal analysis from retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, rejected that idea and oversaw Congress' confirmation of President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory hours after the Capitol was invaded by pro-Trump insurrectionists.
"Mike thought he was going to be a human conveyor belt, that no matter how fraudulent the votes, you have to send them up to the Old Crow," Trump said, using a derisive nickname for then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, another former Trump ally turned foe.
The joint session of Congress to ratify presidential elections, however, does not involve and has never involved electoral votes being "sent" to the Senate majority leader.
Trump said he still likes Pence but was "disappointed in Mike" on January 6, signaling that their political partnership is dead.
"Mike and I had a great relationship except for the very important factor that took place at the end. We had a very good relationship," Trump told the Examiner, referring to January 6. "I haven't spoken to him in a long time."
Potential running mates for Trump's possible presidential comeback bid include Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Drucker details in his 2021 book "In Trump's Shadow" how Pence carved out a niche in the White House as the point-person for corporations and lobbyists seeking access to Trump and built up his own political operation and fundraising apparatus separate from Trump's political efforts.
Pence laid low for a time after leaving office, but has steadily reappeared on the political circuit ahead of an expected 2024 campaign of his own.
Pence said Trump was "wrong" to claim he could unilaterally overturn the 2020 election and that "there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president," in a February speech before the Federalist Society, an organization of conservative lawyers.
The former vice president also recently visited Ukraine, currently under siege by Russia, and took a not-so-subtle shot at Trump's recent comments praising Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Republican National Committee donor retreat.
Pence said "there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin," and later argued the GOP "cannot win by fighting yesterday's battles or by relitigating the past."