Trump slams Mike Pence as a ‘human conveyor belt’ for delivering ‘fraudulent’ votes on January 6

Former President Donald Trump renewed his attacks on his former vice president on Friday, dismissing Mike Pence as a ‘human conveyor belt’ for failing to reject what he said were fraudulent votes in the 2020 election.

It came at the end of a week that revealed more evidence of the way he and his allies tried and failed to persuade Pence to overturn the result.  

The House January 6 committee released testimony of a White House official saying that Trump called Pence a ‘wimp.’

Trump tore into the hearings as a ‘show trial’ in his most sustained attack on the committee since it began its investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

‘I don’t even know who these people are. But I never called Mike Pence a wimp,’ he told a gathering of religious conservatives in Nashville, Tennessee.

‘I never called him a wimp. Mike Pence had a chance to be great.

‘He had a chance to be frankly historic.

‘But just like Bill Barr and the rest of these weak people, Mike – and I say it sadly because I liked them – but Mike did not have the courage to act.’

He also claimed that Democrats were in favor of killing babies, boasted that the audience for his January 6 speech was bigger than for Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, and said the education system was so distorted that teachers could not teach the Bible but were allowed to teach Kindergarten children they could pick their gender.

Former President Donald Trump renewed his attack on his Vice President Mike Pence and the January 6 committee in a speech to religious conservatives on Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s ‘Road to the Majority’ gathering in Nashville, Tennessee

Pence defended his actions in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday. ‘Ultimately, I believe that most Americans understand that we did our duty that day under the Constitution and the laws of this country,’ he said

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He reserved most of his fire for the January 6 investigation and for Pence. 

The committee’s public hearings revealed how key aides and officials told Trump that he had lost the election and his claims of fraud would not be enough to change the result.

Even so, a small circle of advisers developed a plan that centered on pressuring Pence to use his role as president of the Senate to reject electoral college votes from disputed states.

Pence refused, and as Trump supporters overran the Capitol on January 6 some could be heard chanting: ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ 

In his speech to religious conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s ‘Road to the Majority’ gathering, Trump berated his vice president, whose own possible path to the presidency in 2024 will run through the Christian right.

And he repeated his false claims that his defeat to Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. 

‘Mike was afraid of whatever he was afraid of,’ said Trump.

‘But as you heard a year and a half ago, Mike Pence had absolutely no choice but to be a human conveyor belt …. even if the votes were fraudulent. 

‘They said he had to send the votes … couldn’t do anything.’

Trump this week complained that he wanted equal air time as the January 6 committee hearings. So he made the most of a receptive audience

Pence defended his actions in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Friday.

‘Ultimately, I believe that most Americans understand that we did our duty that day under the Constitution and the laws of this country,’ he said. 

‘Mike Pence had absolutely no choice but to be a human conveyor belt …. even if the votes were fraudulent,’ said Trump in his speech

Sen. Marsha Blackburn also spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Nashville

Trump characterized the violence of that day as nothing but a protest, and even bragged about the size of the crowd that watched him deliver a speech in the morning.

‘It was a simple protest,’ he said. 

‘It got out of hand and I will say one thing they don’t talk about they never show the size of the crowd. 

‘I believe it was the largest number of people I’ve ever spoken to.’ 

Trump also delivered a broadside in the education wars.

‘Our children are captives to unhinged Marxist educators who are pushing inappropriate sexual, racial and political material on our children from the youngest possible age,’ he said.

‘They’re not old enough to think 

‘The current education system is so upside down that school prayer is banned. But drag shows are absolutely allowed.

‘You can’t teach the Bible, but you can teach children that men get pregnant and that kindergartners are allowed to pick their own gender.’

The line went down went down well with his religious audience. 

The biggest applause line came when he teased a possible 2024 run, something he has floated repeatedly without yet announcing.

‘Would anybody like for me to run for president?’ he asked, bringing the audience to its feet and setting off thunderous clapping.

He also painted a picture of two Americas. In one, leftist mobs are allowed to threaten conservative Supreme Court justices without condemnation from President Joe Biden; in the other conservatives protesting at the U.S. Capitol are being hounded.

‘The sick individual showed up at Justice Kavanaugh’s home with a knife, a gun, crowbar, zip ties, and yet, Joe Biden has not condemned it,’ he said.  

He added that he would consider pardons for people arrested in connection with the January 6 attack. 

‘To be one people in one nation America must have one set of laws and one system of justice. We don’t have that we have two systems. the radical left is not above the law and conservatives are not beneath the law,’ he said to cheers.

‘The targeting and repression now being directed to Republicans and conservatives is totally unprecedented in American history.’

He also ran through his record in power, highlighting work on the border wall, nominating conservative justices to the Supreme Court and his action against ISIS in the Middle East.

‘I called in Congress to ban late term abortions unlike Democrats who allow babies to be executed after birth… executed after birth,’ he said.

The baby is born. They decide they don’t want the baby after birth. Look at the former governor of Virginia right after birth. Remember that one?

‘In the Republican Party we believe that every life is a sacred gift from God.’

Conservatives have tried to claim that former Democratic Governor Ralph Northam was in favor of infanticide because of remarks he made about third-trimester abortions in the case of severe developmental abnormalities.

The speech came at the end of a difficult week for Trump world as the House investigation continues its public hearings. 

Multiple Trump allies including his daughter Ivanka, former attorney general William Barr and other officials have testified to the committee that they did not believe Trump’s false election claims. 

Trump used his speech to hit back at the committee’s work.  And he went on to compare the size of his crowd on January 6 to the crowd that heard Martin Luther King Jr’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.  

‘They said it was a million people, one million people and then I gave my speech and they showed the same thing,’ he claimed.

‘It’s hard to believe many many decades later, but it’s identical architecture identical pools … everything was identical … 

‘His they said one million people now my pictures were exactly the same but the people were slightly closer together.’

He complained that he had more people, but the media said the crowd was only 25,000 strong.