Trump Says Wanting To "Hang Mike Pence" Was "Common Sense"

In an interview with Donald Trump for Betrayal: The Final Act of The Trump Show, Jonathan Karl (ABC News) asked the malignant narcissist, sociopath, and long-time grifter about the "Hang Mike Pence!" chants yelled by the January 6 insurrectionists.

Trump said he agreed with the chant to murder the Vice President; after all, "the people were very angry". In justifying the sentiment, he said it was "common sense". (a bit of audio)

Karl: Were you worried about him during that siege? Were you worried about his safety?

Trump: No, I thought he was well-protected, and I had heard that he was in good shape. No. Because I had heard he was in very good shape. But, but, no, I think —

Karl: Because you heard those chants. That was terrible. I mean —

Trump: He could have — well, the people were very angry.

Karl: They were saying, "Hang Mike Pence."

Trump: Because — 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? How can you do that? And I'm telling you: 50/50, it's right down the middle for the top constitutional scholars when I speak to them. Anybody I spoke to — almost all of them at least pretty much agree, and some very much agree with me — because he's passing on a vote that he knows is fraudulent. How can you pass a vote that you know is fraudulent? Now, when I spoke to him, I really talked about all of the fraudulent things that happened during the election. I didn't talk about the main point, which is the legislatures did not approve — five states. The legislatures did not approve all of those changes that made the difference between a very easy win for me in the states, or a loss that was very close, because the losses were all very close."

That's a solid campaign slogan. Trump 2024: It's Common Sense to Hang Mike Pence.

Note: You can be sure Trump has never spoken to any "top constitutional scholars" and his claim that "almost all of them at least pretty much agree, and some very much agree with me" is laughable. That's his standard response when making a nonsense claim. He'll tell you that all the people who you would rely upon, well, they all agree with him. He says this when he's not boasting that he knows more about constitutional law than any scholar in the country. I would bet my annual salary that Trump could not name even one "top constitutional scholar" he claims to have spoken after the 2020 election.

Trump's attitude is no surprise, but his feelings hadn't been made so explicit (and public) before. He cares for no one but himself – literally, no one. (That includes his daughter Ivanka, with whom he has said, several times, he would like to have sex. He has called her "hot" (when she was 16 years old) and "one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody". He gushed that she has "the best body" ("I helped create her"), agreed she was "a piece of ass", and said he tries to kiss her "as often as I can". A Washington Post columnist wrote that Trump once asked: "Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?" Ivanka was 13 at the time. And still Trump would let Ivanka go to prison for life if it saved his bacon.)

As rioters entered the Capitol and began looking for senators and representatives, Trump tweeted that Pence had not done his patriotic duty and had failed his country. The chants about assassinating the Vice President began soon after. As the riot raged on, Trump watched on TV, "confused about why other people . . . weren't as excited as he was", according to Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). Trump told Kevin McCarthy, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are". Trump also made numerous phone calls to various supporters, including Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).

Shortly after the riot, Trump referred to the Capital terrorists as "great patriots" who had been "badly & unfairly treated". In a video message, he told them, "We love you."

Trump did not make any attempt to contact Pence for days after the attack. While Pence was in hiding for his safety, Trump lawyer John Eastman told a Pence aide that the VP was to blame for the riot, because he did not help to illegally overturn the election.

Amazingly, Pence, the ultimate lap-dog, still supports Trump. Last June, he said he and Trump had spoken "many times" and he "lavished praise" on Trump, according to Forbes. Even more amazingly, Pence thinks he still has a political career. But who would vote for him? Trump chose him specifically because he's a milquetoast cipher and now the MAGA dolts think he committed treason.

* * *

Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine explains how "at the literal level" Trump's public stance on the insurrection has slowly shifted 180 degrees:

Multiple reports have shown that Trump thrilled to the insurrection as it occurred, refusing for hours to ask his supporters to stop and lashing out at Republicans who expressed concern for their own safety.  . . .

A backlash among Republicans — who briefly entertained the notion of impeaching him — forced Trump to publicly disavow the insurrection. Reading from a script in the Oval Office on January 13, Trump said, "Like all of you, I was shocked and saddened by the calamity at the Capitol last week … I want to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country."

You could detect a hint of what was to come when Trump changed the subject away from that riot to other bad riots carried out by his enemies. . . . He turned to a denunciation of "the efforts to cancel, censor, and blacklist our fellow citizens."

After Republicans abandoned impeachment, Trump began to downplay the riot, which was no longer a "calamity" but a minor act of trespassing. "It was zero threat. Right from the start, it was zero threat," he told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in March. "Look, they went in — they shouldn't have done it — some of them went in, and they're hugging and kissing the police and the guards, you know? They had great relationships." . . .

Trump's main argument at this time was his customary whataboutism.  . . . "Instead of doing a Forensic Audit, they want to investigate the Patriots who have fought for the truth and who are exposing a very possibly Rigged Election," Trump wrote in June. . . .

Whether or not this was a conscious strategy, Trump was drawing a tighter connection between the riot and the election. . . . 

Also in July, Trump began to emphasize the wrongful suffering of the rioters. . . . The prosecution of the rioters was a Justice Department witch hunt against his supporters: "Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly relating to the January 6th protest concerning the Rigged Presidential Election."

One of Trump's signature rhetorical moves is to take phrases used against him or his supporters and turn them against his critics. "Fake news" originated as a description of literally imaginary news stories written as a hoax, but Trump turned it into a conservative label for any news story that painted him in a bad light. Likewise, he instructed his supporters that "insurrection" meant the election, not the January 6 riot hoping to overturn it. . . .

The Unselect Committee . . . should come to the conclusion . . . that the real insurrection happened on November 3rd, the Presidential Election, not on January 6th — which was a day of protesting the Fake Election results.

He had crept right up to the edge of endorsing the riot. It only took the slightest evolution in his rhetoric to slip over the line into glorifying the mob's violent intentions. Trump's explanation is remarkably clear. . . . 

If a landslide election result had been stolen, and if the vice-president refused to take the legal steps available to him to rectify the error, why would the threat of lethal force be disproportionate?

At the literal level, Trump's line on the riot has transformed by 180 degrees, from denouncing it as a "calamity" to praising it as "common sense." But the truth is that his supporters have understood that Trump supported the insurrection all along because they took him seriously, not literally.

If Trump runs again, he will either win fairly or claim he was cheated. And if the latter occurs, his supporters will know exactly what he wants them to do.