Pence’s new book details Trump’s lengthy Jan. 6 pressure campaign

Then-Vice President Pence was getting on the phone with President Donald Trump the evening of Dec. 13, 2020, just as chatter was exploding on the internet that he could delay or block the certification of Trump’s electoral loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

 

In his new memoir, “So Help Me God,” Pence writes of how Trump told him during that call that he should decline to participate in Congress’s certification of that vote if he wanted to be “popular.”

 

“He told me I was trending number two on Twitter as people began speculating whether I was going to participate in the January 6 proceedings at all,” Pence wrote. The Hill obtained an advance copy of the memoir.

 

“Given the widening concern of so many people about election fraud, supporters around the country were arguing that I should decline to participate altogether. The president concurred,” Pence wrote.

 

“‘If you want to be popular, don’t do it,’ he suggested,” Pence’s memoir states.