Mike “Judas” Pence is selling new merch (hats, shirts, jewelry) in an effort to capitalize on the elite position given to him by President Donald J. Trump, who chose Pence as his running mate in 2016 and elevated Pence’s career to heights that the former talk show host could never have reached on his own.
Even after two years of scarcely registering on anyone’s political ‘dance card,’ the news that Pence has attempted to run for president went viral, and his major announcement has been met with skepticism.
Pence, who is known for getting approval on major decisions from his wife, who was nicknamed “Mother,” has chosen to brand himself as a fragile victim of the MAGA movement, demonstrating that he never really understood the populist underpinnings of the MAGA movement in the first place and that he is much more comfortable living in the elite power bubbles of Washington, DC.
Pence, who betrayed the United States with his fragility and timidity by refusing to hear the people’s demands for more transparency in the 2020 elections despite having the constitutional authority to do so as Vice President, appears petulant and hyper-focused on running his own campaign for president, and has selected a slogan and logo that are an absolute embarrassment.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson a few weeks after entering the race for president, Pence demonstrated his lack of understanding of the MAGA movement. This was one of the first indications that suspicions about Pence’s utter ignorance would be fundamental to his campaign.
When Pence said that America was not his concern:
I will be joining @polarisnatsec for the next stop of the "America the Great" tour this Saturday in Bedford, New Hampshire!
See you there! pic.twitter.com/sGz0wu7AQA
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) August 3, 2023
The Memes almost made themselves:
Pence! 💯🎯 pic.twitter.com/HodURzfx9X
— FFT™👠Conservative Values & News (@FemalesForTrump) August 7, 2023
And everyone knows that Pence is not our friend:
😩🤣🤣🤷🏽♂️ it’s to the point where Trump is going to have a lot of time to end all of these charges once he’s re-elected & .@Mike_Pence did not choose the constitution he chose #theswap pic.twitter.com/lrkE3PhmCs
— 🇺🇸 🍊 Antoine Tucker (@montaga) August 2, 2023
And now Pence has made matters worse for himself.
Pence Hat pic.twitter.com/yRRcWxevLN
— william.busshart (@williambusshar1) August 3, 2023
The Washington Examiner reported on the details of Pence’s newest moves:
“Former Vice President Mike Pence’s presidential campaign is capitalizing on former President Donald Trump’s recent indictment related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election by selling new merchandise.
The Pence campaign has made available T-shirts and hats branded with the phrase “Too Honest,” which is allegedly the phrase Trump used to describe his vice president when he wouldn’t go along with his plan to overturn the election’s results, something Pence maintained he didn’t have the power to do.
Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Special counsel Jack Smith brought four new charges against the former president, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. These were stated in a 45-page indictment.”
Here are Pence’s statements during an appearance on Face the Nation:
MAJOR GARRETT: Mr. Vice President, you were in New Hampshire recently, as you were going to an event, some Trump supporters came to you and called you a traitor, said you were a sellout, said you didn’t uphold the Constitution. To what degree does that rattle you?
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: You know, I know in my heart of hearts, that on January 6, I did my duty, kept my oath to the Constitution of the United States. And the thing that I’m encouraged about, Major, is as we travel, not only here in New Hampshire, but around the country, is more and more Americans are recognizing that we kept our oath that day. And I think with this week’s news I’ve had- I’ve had so many people come up to me and just express their appreciation for the stand that we took, by God’s grace, to do our duty to see to the peaceful transfer of power. And I’m encouraged by that, I must tell you. Look, President Trump was wrong. He was wrong then. He’s wrong now. I had no right to overturn the election. And more and more Americans are coming up to me every day and recognizing that, and- and for my part, I’m running for president in part because, frankly, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution that day, but I chose the Constitution and I always will.
MAJOR GARRETT: So I want to ask you about characterizations that have been made by those who speak on behalf of the president’s legal team. They’ve said this week that all they asked of you, that is to say the president, was to delay the proceedings to allow states to conduct an audit. Is that a truthful representation of what you were asked to do, Mr. Vice President?
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: Major, that’s not what happened. And, you know, as I wrote about in my book, as I’ve spoken about very openly, and- and frankly, as is recounted in aspects of the pleadings that were filed this week. From-from sometime in the middle of December, the president began to be told that I had some authority to reject or return votes back to the states. I had no such authority. No vice president in American history had ever asserted that authority and no one ever should. Your viewers can go to Article II of the Constitution and see that it’s very clear. It says that the vice president, as president of the Senate, should preside over the House and Senate in a joint session, and that the Electoral College votes shall be opened and shall be counted. There was no discretion ever given to the vice president in history, nor should there ever be. I had no right to overturn the election and Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024. But look, I- I- I stand by the facts as they occurred. I mean, it ebbed and flowed between different legal theories, but at the end of the day, I know we did our duty. I know we kept our oath. But I- I truly do believe that, you know, no one who ever puts himself over the Constitution should ever be president of the United States. I mean, our Constitution is more important than any one man and our country is more important than any one man’s career. And, you know, I’m running because, not just I kept faith with the Constitution every day for those four years, but also because this country is in a lot of trouble. And frankly, I know the media is preoccupied with this issue and virtually everything having to do with my former running mate, but as I travel around New Hampshire, as I was in Iowa over the last week, people are struggling in this economy. They’re worried about the world becoming more dangerous by the day. They’re seeing energy prices spike. And we’re gonna focus on those issues even while making the case that, that we kept our word, we kept our oath and by God’s grace, we did our duty on that fateful day.
The American people were not impressed:
Good morning to everyone except Pence the Puss. pic.twitter.com/K3zX0mJeAe
— Brandie with a 🐝 (@BrandieWithABee) August 7, 2023