Reminder: Mike Pence, Now Running for President, Tried His Hardest to Help Trump Overturn the 2020 Election

Mike Pence officially announced he is running for president today, making him one of nearly a dozen candidates to seek the GOP nomination. Is the former vice president as awful as Donald Trump (or Ron DeSantis for that matter)? No, but that’s like saying a root canal isn’t as bad as a late-in-life circumcision—it’s still extremely bad and should be avoided at all costs. If you’ve been fortunate enough to have blocked out Pence’s time in Washington—and his years in Indiana before that—the following is a reminder of just some of the reasons you absolutely do not want to be calling the guy “Mr. President” come January 20, 2025.

In the lead-up to January 6, he actually tried very hard to figure out a way to do Trump’s bidding

In the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2001, attack on the Capitol, a narrative emerged that Pence was basically a hero for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as Trump wanted him to do. In reality, though, the then VP came much closer to undermining democracy on his boss’s behalf. According to Peril, the book by veteran reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Pence, in his own telling, did “everything” he could to try and stop the certification of the election, and during a conversation with former vice president Dan Quayle***,*** “over and over…asked if there was anything he could do.”

He refused to testify before the January 6 committee

Given Pence’s unique insight into the 2021 insurrection, and the fact that Trump nearly got him killed, you might have thought that the ex–vice president would have been happy to speak to the House panel that investigated the events before, during, and after that terrible day. But no, he didn’t, presumably because he didn’t want to upset the big guy or the big guy’s supporters.

He also tried his hardest to avoid speaking to a grand jury investigating Trump’s attempt to overturn the election

In this case, Pence was ultimately unsuccessful, and was forced to testify as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the ex-president. But it’s important to note that he really didn’t want to, despite not just the matter of Trump saying he deserved the chants calling for his hanging but claiming that January 6 was actually Pence’s fault.

By the way, it wasn’t until November 2022—when his book came out—that Pence sort of blamed Trump for what happened on January 6, saying, for the first time, “it was clear [Trump] decided to be part of the problem,” which may be the understatement of both this century and the last one. Oh, and it seems pretty clear that, despite everything, he’d still support Trump in a general election.

It’s his personal goal in life to ensure pregnant people have no rights

Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, Pence declared, “We must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land,” which is another way of saying, “we must not rest until abortion is outlawed in every state.” He has said he will “seize every opportunity” to limit the medical procedure, and supports a national abortion ban at six weeks (when many people don’t even know they’re pregnant).

He helped cause the worst HIV breakout in Indiana history (yes, caused!)

In 2013, during Pence’s first year as governor of Indiana, the sole Planned Parenthood in Scott County closed thanks to cuts to public health spending—a deeply unfortunate occurrence given that it was the only place in the county doing HIV testing. Fast-forward a couple years, and in 2015, per HuffPost, “local health officials began to report HIV cases linked to intravenous prescription opioid use in Scott County. Scott County residents were sharing needles to inject their opioids, and nobody was getting tested.” Health experts believed the situation, which was soon spiraling “out of control,” could and should be dealt with by distributing clean needles but one guy did not and we’ll give you one guess who that guy was. “I don’t believe effective antidrug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia,” Pence said at the time, adding that if Indiana state lawmakers sent a bill for a needle-exchange program to his desk, he would veto it.

Despite the fact that, as The New York Times noted, the “epidemic…was growing more dire by the day,” Pence still refused to back down from his not-scientifically-sound position and instead turned to prayer. Finally, more than two months after the outbreak was initially identified, the then governor allowed syringes to be dispensed in Scott County. In 2018, Yale University researchers concluded that, per The Washington Post, “the epidemic could have been prevented if Pence and state officials had acted faster.”

As of at least 2016, he didn’t believe in evolution

He does not seem to have commented on the matter in the intervening years, but presumably his opinion has not changed.

It absolutely appears as though he once, not too long ago, was in support of conversion therapy

When Trump added Pence to the 2016 ticket, his spokesman insisted that it was “patently false” that Pence “supported or advocated” the practice of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Yet on his 2000 congressional campaign website—in the section just after noting his opposition to gay marriage and antidiscrimination laws—Team Pence wrote:

Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act [which provided funding for HIV/AIDS patients] only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.

As Rea Carey, the then executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, told the Times: “That is very specific language—some might call it a dog whistle—that has been used for decades to very thinly cloak deeply homophobic beliefs. Particularly the phrase ‘seeking to change their sexual behavior,’ to me, is code for conversion therapy.”

In 2000 (!) he was still claiming “smoking doesn’t kill”

Naturally, he also claimed that there is no link between smoking and lung cancer.

In the year 2023, he thinks it’s cool to tell homophobic jokes (and jokes about postpartum depression??)

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He’s still doing Trump’s bidding

Asked to comment after a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, Pence said, “I would tell you, in my 4 and a half years serving alongside the president, I never heard or witnessed behavior of that nature.” (He said this at an event for “the Center for Christian Virtue.”)