Vice President Mike Pence bows his head in prayer throughout a dialogue with native religion leaders to encourage them to renew in-person church providers in a accountable style in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Friday, Might 8, 2020, in Urbandale, Iowa. Charlie Neibergall, Related Press
Nadia Radic, for the Deseret Information
President Donald Trump listens as Vice President Mike Pence speaks concerning the coronavirus within the Rose Backyard of the White Home, April 27, 2020, in Washington. As Mike Pence approaches a probable 2024 run for president, he’s opening as much as audiences concerning the components of his profession earlier than he served as Donald Trump’s vice chairman. He hopes his 12 years in Congress and 4 years as Indiana governor will mission the document of a conservative fighter. Alex Brandon, Related Press
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence gesture on the 2020 Republican Nationwide Conference in Charlotte, N.C. on Aug. 24, 2020. Andrew Harnik, Related Press
Vice President Mike Pence speaks in the course of the first day of the Republican Nationwide Conference on Aug. 24, 2020, in Charlotte, N.C. Travis Dove, The New York Occasions by way of AP
On this picture from video launched by the Home Choose Committee, Vice President Mike Pence seems to be at a telephone from his safe evacuation location on Jan. 6 as Home choose committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol holds a listening to Thursday, June 16, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Home Choose Committee by way of Related Press
Vice President Mike Pence talks with Westkirk Church Senior Pastor Michael Mudlaff, proper, and Temple B’nai Jeshurun Rabbi David Kaufman following a gathering with native religion leaders to encourage them to renew in-person church providers in a accountable style in response to the coronavirus pandemic on Might 8, 2020, in Urbandale, Iowa. Charlie Neibergall, Related Press
A fly lands on the pinnacle of Vice President Mike Pence in the course of the vice presidential debate Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020, at Kingsbury Corridor on the campus of the College of Utah in Salt Lake Metropolis. Justin Sullivan, Related Press
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Utah Valley College in Orem on Sept. 20, 2022. Pence was a visitor of the college’s Herbert Institute for Public Coverage. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
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Jeffress is a Fox Information common who’s spent the final seven years as former President Donald Trump’s most distinguished evangelical ally. The pastor spoke at Trump marketing campaign occasions in Iowa earlier than the 2016 primaries. He publicly defended Trump after the “Entry Hollywood” tape got here out. The First Baptist Dallas choir made nationwide headlines in 2017 after they sang a hymn known as “Make America Nice Once more.” And Trump himself visited this church the week of Christmas 2021, attracting a thunderous crowd and a throng of protesters.
At the moment is rather more sedate and absent protesters. However each ranges of the amphitheater-size sanctuary are fairly full for the 11 a.m. service. Jeffress provides Pence a glowing introduction and reminds his congregants that Pence is a “nice pal.” In entrance of a stay viewers of 1000's and a television-and-streaming viewers of 1000's extra, Jeffress asks Pence what position religion ought to play in politics, and Pence says “freedom of faith is just not freedom from faith. … It is a nation of religion.”
Then Jeffress invokes the Previous Testomony’s testing of Abraham and asks about Jan. 6.
“Gallows had been constructed on the Capitol grounds. A noose had been hooked up on the gallows on your execution,” Jeffress says. “The Secret Service urged you and your loved ones to go away on your personal security, and but you refused to desert your obligation.” What, Jeffress asks, gave Pence the braveness to face sturdy that day?
For a lot of the dialog, Pence has leaned again in his chair, smiling that close-lipped smile that’s turn into his trademark. It’s the identical bulletproof smile he displayed as he stared adoringly on the president for four-plus years. His eyes have twinkled ever so barely within the church’s studio-quality lighting. However after the Jan. 6 query Pence squints and nods in thought. He inhales deeply.
Mike Pence hasn’t shied away from speaking about Jan. 6, 2021, the day an indignant mob erected gallows and ran by the halls of the Capitol chanting “Cling Mike Pence!” Others within the Trump orbit have tried to reduce or fully recast what occurred that day, however Pence hasn’t. He’s written about it, spoken about it, answered questions on it in interviews. The title of his ebook, “So Assist Me God,” is a reference to his oath of workplace — an oath he feels he was honoring that day, when he break up with then-President Trump and presided over a joint session of Congress that formally counted the electoral faculty votes, formalizing the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election.
“What noticed us by that day,” Pence says, noting that his spouse and daughter have been with him on the Capitol, “was God’s grace.”
There’s a smattering of applause.
Pence reiterates that he’s “extremely proud” of the document of the Trump-Pence administration. He mentions the border, Israel, power and the three Supreme Courtroom justices that helped overturn Roe v. Wade — which will get a bigger applause.
“Clearly the administration didn't finish properly,” Pence says. “January 6 was a tragic day.”
Pence hasn’t mentioned he’s operating for president in 2024 — no less than not formally. However in an interview with me, and interviews with different reporters, he definitely feels like he’s launching a presidential marketing campaign. His ebook feels lots like a conventional marketing campaign ebook. He’s additionally been quietly flying across the nation (he’ll be in Salt Lake Metropolis Friday), chatting with church buildings and enterprise teams about his personal story and every thing he thinks is improper with the Biden administration. These talks appear remarkably much like stump speeches. And sure, in some unspecified time in the future in practically all of those locations, somebody mentions that day. And shortly that day could loom even bigger for him: In late April, he testified below oath concerning the conversations he had with Trump involving Trump’s quest to overturn the 2020 election.
What Pence did — or somewhat what he didn’t do — on Jan. 6 has created an amazingly peculiar political dilemma. Half the nation has heard for 2 years that Pence had the power to cease a rigged election however selected to not. The opposite half of the nation, the half that’s grateful Pence didn’t attempt to halt democracy that day, isn’t prone to neglect that Pence partnered with and enabled Trump for the 4 years main as much as Jan. 6.
However Pence has one thing that no different potential Republican presidential candidate has. Pence has spent his total profession making his religious spiritual beliefs the middle of his identification. The person completely can’t be out-churched. And till comparatively not too long ago, that strategy has had fairly a little bit of success in American politics.
Nadia Radic, for the Deseret Information
Pence has spent his total profession making his religious spiritual beliefs the middle of his identification. And till comparatively not too long ago, that strategy has had fairly a little bit of success in American politics.
If evangelical voters may go right into a lab and create a politician, that candidate would in all probability come out trying and sounding like Mike Pence. For many years he’s launched himself to crowds by explaining that he’s “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican,” at all times including, “in that order.”
By all accounts, Pence is a real believer, a veteran trooper in America’s perpetual tradition conflict, impressed by his evangelical religion and the business-friendly, nationalistic stylings of Ronald Reagan.
Pence grew up in small-town Indiana, one in every of six children in a devoutly Irish-Catholic dwelling. His mom, “a precocious redhead,” he tells individuals, was a homemaker. His father — “a fight veteran who raised my brothers and me prefer it was his final platoon,” Pence calls him — ran a series of comfort shops and voted Democrat.
After attending a music competition in Kentucky billed because the Christian Woodstock, Pence was born once more. As he tells it, on a wet spring evening in 1978, he felt known as to face up, discover a pastor, and bow his head and settle for Jesus Christ as his savior. A couple of years later, Pence went from a Jimmy Carter-supporting Democrat to a loyal Reagan acolyte.
Whereas attending legislation college in Bloomington, Pence met his future spouse, Karen, in church. They’ve been married 37 years and have three kids and three younger grandchildren. And nary an untoward private scandal. In reality, he’s been identified to discuss with his spouse as “Mom,” although within the time I’m round him I hear him discuss Karen typically and he doesn’t as soon as name her that.
Pence first ran for workplace in 1988, when he was 29. His congressional marketing campaign consisted of him bicycling round his district in athletic shorts and tennis sneakers, chatting with anybody receptive to a dialog. He obtained the Republican nomination however misplaced within the normal. Two years later he ran once more, went shockingly adverse in his advertisements and was caught utilizing marketing campaign funds to pay his mortgage and grocery payments — which wasn’t unlawful on the time however is now. Pence misplaced that election by 19 factors.
Nonetheless preventing the conservative tradition conflict struggle, he launched a talk-radio present, what he known as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.” He additionally began a political e-newsletter and often wrote op-eds that ran in newspapers throughout Indiana. His type was hokey and his arguments appear dated now. He opened every present with “Greetings throughout the amber waves of grain.” His scorching takes on the time included a protection of the tobacco trade (“smoking doesn’t kill”), arguments towards early local weather change agreements, and a requirement that President Invoice Clinton resign amid the Monica Lewinsky scandal. However Pence used this time to construct a statewide viewers and sharpen his religiously framed stances. When he ran for Congress once more in 2000, he gained simply.
On Capitol Hill, he championed protection spending, deregulation and conventional evangelical social values. He repeatedly voted to limit abortion, to defund Deliberate Parenthood, and in sturdy help of Israel. He began rising within the ranks of Republican management and attracted the eye of Republican megadonors, together with the Koch brothers. By 2012 he was considering a run for president however was reportedly satisfied to run for governor of Indiana as an alternative.
He campaigned as a business-friendly conservative, with a tone lifted immediately from Reagan. Pence’s time period as governor is remembered for signing his spiritual freedom laws in 2015, simply previous to the Supreme Courtroom’s ruling on same-sex marriage, that will have allowed enterprise homeowners, like florists or cakebakers, to refuse providers for homosexual prospects. After companies throughout the state objected, and Pence fumbled by an look on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” he finally compromised, signing a watered-down model of the invoice. By the early levels of the 2016 election cycle, Pence’s statewide approval score was below 40%, and it seemed like his political profession is perhaps over.
President Donald Trump listens as Vice President Mike Pence speaks concerning the coronavirus within the Rose Backyard of the White Home, April 27, 2020, in Washington. As Mike Pence approaches a probable 2024 run for president, he’s opening as much as audiences concerning the components of his profession earlier than he served as Donald Trump’s vice chairman. He hopes his 12 years in Congress and 4 years as Indiana governor will mission the document of a conservative fighter.
Alex Brandon, Related Press
Then got here Donald Trump.
Pence’s religious-right bona fides made him the right operating mate to shore up conservative voters involved about Trump’s probity. And it didn’t take lengthy for Pence to turn into Trump’s most proficient advocate, the heavy hitter Trump’s group unholstered for alternative Sunday reveals and heartland occasions. Along with his three many years of gladhanding and public piety, Pence may reassure supporters who have been queasy over Trump’s many scandals.
After the “Entry Hollywood” tape turned public, Pence mentioned he was “offended” and “can not defend” Trump’s remarks. However in the identical assertion, Pence identified that the video was 11 years previous and that Trump had “expressed regret and apologized to the American individuals.” Pence additionally mentioned he seemed ahead to Trump exhibiting the nation “what's in his coronary heart.” (Pence’s camp has additionally denied reviews that he volunteered to step in on the prime of the ticket if the occasion determined to dump Trump on the final second.)
After porn star Stormy Daniels alleged that Trump and his legal professional Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 in hush cash earlier than the election, Pence known as the accusations “baseless.” When Trump alleged “large-scale voter fraud taking place on and earlier than election day” in 2016, Pence echoed the feelings with the couching of a intelligent legal professional, saying, “Voter fraud can't be tolerated by anybody on this nation.” After Trump mentioned there have been “very tremendous individuals on each side” of a lethal conflict at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Pence instructed reporters that Trump had “made it very clear” that he condemns “all types of hate and violence.”
Pence added, unsolicited, “I really imagine that below President Trump’s management, we’re gonna proceed to see extra unity in America.”
However in fact, Pence by no means actually wanted to say a lot. Simply standing behind Trump, flashing that smile, Pence was implicitly telling hundreds of thousands of Individuals that every one of this — the entire scandals and the shattering of norms and the loopy tweets — it was all tremendous, truly.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence gesture on the 2020 Republican Nationwide Conference in Charlotte, N.C. on Aug. 24, 2020.
Andrew Harnik, Related Press
Pence even joked about that earlier this yr, on the white-tie Gridiron dinner in Washington, D.C. At his weekly lunches with the president, Pence instructed the gang, Trump preferred when Pence would sing him “Wind Beneath My Wings” — particularly the phrase, “Did you ever know that you just’re my hero?”
Oh yeah, that’s the opposite factor. Mike Pence is definitely type of humorous. He won't write all of his personal materials, and his humorousness is totally dad-joke-tastic, however Pence will get laughs. At that very same Gridiron dinner, he quipped about his personal piousness.
“I’m actually not as uptight as many individuals suppose,” he instructed the gang. “There’s this concept that I’m some type of spiritual nut. I’m actually not. Simply ask my sons, Jedediah, Obadiah or Zechariah.” His most popular pronouns, he added, are “thou and thine.”
And but, regardless of the polished Republican resume, the culture-warrior cred, the old-school charisma and that sturdy handsome-grandpa power that’s achieved so properly in conservative circles for many years, in the meanwhile Pence is an extended shot to win the presidency. In early Republican major polling, Pence is often round 6%-7%. When Atlantic author McKay Coppins sat in on focus teams of Republicans earlier this yr, he discovered that the individuals virtually universally disdained Pence.
“He’s solely gonna get the vote from his household,” one participant mentioned. “And I’m not even certain in the event that they like him.”
One other participant mentioned that Pence “simply must go away.”
In the meantime, Trump remains to be on the prime of those self same polls, even after being arrested in April for his alleged involvement within the Stormy Daniels hush-money scandal.
So, I ask Pence how he plans to get Trump supporters — a few of whom have been chanting “Cling Mike Pence” — to now solid a poll for him.
“Look,” he tells me, “I believe the failed insurance policies of the Biden administration at dwelling and overseas, and the novel left wing insurance policies of the Democratic Social gathering as we speak, are going to be an excellent unifying issue for the standard-bearer of the Republican Social gathering.”
Pence tells me that one of many enduring classes from the 2022 midterms, the place Republicans underperformed expectations, comes all the way down to specializing in the long run.
“Candidates that have been targeted on the long run did properly,” he says. “Candidates that have been targeted on the previous or relitigating the previous didn't fare as properly.”
I ask him how he addresses the individuals who’ve been instructed time and again for 2 years that Pence had the power to cease a rigged election however selected to not.
“With the reality,” Pence says. “The details. That’s why I communicate as brazenly as I do about it.”
Vice President Mike Pence speaks in the course of the first day of the Republican Nationwide Conference on Aug. 24, 2020, in Charlotte, N.C.
Travis Dove, The New York Occasions by way of AP
Half the nation has heard for 2 years that Pence had the power to cease a rigged election however selected to not. The opposite half isn’t prone to neglect that Pence enabled Trump for the 4 years main as much as Jan. 6.
Most Individuals don’t perceive how near a potential coup this nation might need come. However Mike Pence is aware of.
For weeks, Trump had been telling anybody who would hear that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Pence had the ability to overturn the outcomes by refusing to certify the depend. Trump instructed Pence himself this on Christmas Day, when Pence made his annual name to want the president and first girl a Merry Christmas.
Throughout his rally on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump addressed Pence immediately, although the vice chairman was already on the Capitol.
“Mike Pence, I hope you’re gonna get up for the great of our Structure and for the great of our nation,” Trump instructed his supporters. “And if you happen to’re not, I’m going to be very upset in you, I'll inform you proper now.”
When rioters broke into the Capitol an hour or so later, Pence’s safety element moved him out of the Senate chamber and right into a small, seldom-used ceremonial workplace reserved for the vice chairman. It’s the room the place Vice President Henry Wilson died, the place Vice President Harry Truman was sworn in as president.
Eight minutes after Pence was evacuated from the Senate flooring, Trump tweeted about Pence:
“Mike Pence didn’t have the braveness to do what ought to have been achieved to guard our Nation and our Structure, giving States an opportunity to certify a corrected set of details, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they have been requested to beforehand certify. USA calls for the reality!”
A White Home safety official later instructed Congress that at one level members of the vice chairman’s element felt so endangered that they have been screaming over the radio and that “there have been calls to say goodbye to members of the family.”
Amid all that, Pence and his household have been moved from the ceremonial workplace to a subterranean loading dock beneath the Capitol. Pence’s Secret Service group instructed him to get into the armored limousine ready there. That’s when Pence uttered six phrases that very properly could have modified the course of historical past.
“I’m not getting in that automobile.”
Whether or not you admired the way in which Pence stood by Trump by all method of controversy otherwise you thought Pence was a compliant captive, smiling with adoration, Jan. 6, 2021 was the day Mike Pence broke free. And your entire day is encapsulated by this extremely dramatic second standing subsequent to that automobile.
I needed to know what that second felt like.
On this picture from video launched by the Home Choose Committee, Vice President Mike Pence seems to be at a telephone from his safe evacuation location on Jan. 6 as Home choose committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol holds a listening to Thursday, June 16, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Home Choose Committee by way of Related Press
He’s mentioned repeatedly that he wasn’t afraid. In his ebook, he says he was indignant and indignant about the way in which the invaders “desecrated the seat of our democracy and dishonored the patriotism of hundreds of thousands of our supporters.” However I nonetheless needed to know what it felt like to face subsequent to that armored car and refuse to enter. I needed to know what he thought would possibly occur if he had gotten in.
It’s the very first thing I ask about when Pence and I sit down for an interview in an workplace in the back of a church in rural, central Louisiana. It’s late March and nonetheless chilly within the piney woods simply west of the Mississippi River. Pence is sporting one other darkish blue swimsuit, an impeccably starched white shirt and a modern silver tie completely tied. He’s 63, 13 years youthful than Trump, and with that helmet of carefully cropped platinum hair, Pence may move for early 50s. In individual, he’s additionally hotter, extra congenial than he can come throughout on TV.
In our time collectively, I’ll ask him if he thinks he enabled Trump, and if he thinks that led to what occurred on Jan. 6. And since I can’t assist myself, I’ll ask concerning the fly that landed on his head in the course of the vice-presidential debate in 2020 — and have become maybe essentially the most ubiquitous meme in an administration stuffed with them.
However first I ask Pence what he thinks would’ve occurred if he’d gotten into that automobile.
He nods barely, staying silent for practically 10 seconds earlier than answering.
“I depart that to others,” he tells me, squinting thoughtfully. “Secret Service, understandably, needed to get me out of the constructing. … The doorways within the automobile have been open, they usually instructed me they needed me to carry within the automobile, and I instructed them I wasn’t getting within the automobile.”
Pence says he defined to his element: “You shut that 200-pound door and any individual again from headquarters tells them, ‘Get the vice chairman out of the constructing —’”
Pence cuts himself off earlier than he finishes that thought.
“I’ve had a element since I used to be governor of Indiana,” he tells me. “Their job is to guard you. My job was to help and defend the Structure, which I used to be decided to do by staying at my submit within the constructing.”
I ask him how typically he thinks about that day. He laughs a little bit.
“Not as typically as some individuals do,” he says. “I’m an out-the-windshield man, not a rear-view mirror man.”
Pence went from a Jimmy Carter-supporting Democrat to a loyal Reagan acolyte.
Earlier than introducing Pence to the congregation at Philadelphia Baptist Church in Deville, Louisiana, senior pastor Philip Robertson jokes about what an important day it's to have him.
“There are those that by no means thought it potential that a former vice chairman of the US would ever go to Deville, Louisiana,” the pastor says. “Some might need even mentioned that Hell would freeze over earlier than that occurred. Nicely guess what? It’s going to be 26 levels tonight in Central, Louisiana.”
Because the viewers snickers, Robertson provides an “Amen.” Then he welcomes Pence to the pulpit, calling him “a brother in Christ.”
It’s a Sunday in mid-March. This place is way smaller and extra informal than the church in Dallas. There are many denims and caps and the sanctuary is a little bit dated. Pence takes the stage and thanks Robertson, calling him “Brother Philip.” Then Pence venerates the church’s 150-year ministry.
“I’m a little bit bit humbled to face at a podium that's so well-served,” Pence says. “However I’ll do my finest.” He provides, “I'm consoled by the truth that I did keep at a Vacation Inn Specific final evening.”
Pence tells the viewers about his life since leaving workplace, portray a portrait of an idyllic existence again in Indiana. He makes a couple of references to the Trump-Pence administration — and like at all times will get large cheers when he mentions the Supreme Courtroom overturning Roe v. Wade — however Pence largely makes use of the time to share his testimony: his choice to dedicate his life to Christ and the way it’s formed his public service.
Vice President Mike Pence talks with Westkirk Church Senior Pastor Michael Mudlaff, proper, and Temple B’nai Jeshurun Rabbi David Kaufman following a gathering with native religion leaders to encourage them to renew in-person church providers in a accountable style in response to the coronavirus pandemic on Might 8, 2020, in Urbandale, Iowa.
Charlie Neibergall, Related Press
“My coronary heart was damaged by what had been achieved for me on the cross,” he says as applause builds.
In all, Pence talks for about 20 minutes. He’s a compelling storyteller, however he additionally is aware of the cadences, the verbiage of this world. He effortlessly weaves Previous and New Testomony references all through the discuss. On the finish of his testimony, he will get a roaring ovation. He nods, squinting and flashing that smile.
After the service, the road to get a ebook signed stretches out of the again of the corridor and throughout the chilly car parking zone. The gang has been instructed to not maintain the road up for pictures, however loads of individuals ask anyway and Pence obliges each time. He additionally makes a couple of seconds of small discuss with every individual as they arrive by his desk. He shakes arms. He asks about children. He thanks veterans and first responders for his or her service.
When a little bit lady tells Pence that as we speak is her tenth birthday, he shortly takes out a small piece of stationary with “The Vice President” printed throughout the highest and attracts a easy cartoon of himself — the smile, the tie, the pensive forehead — and a speech bubble that reads “HAPPY tenth BIRTHDAY RYLEE!”
That is how Pence hopes to persuade individuals of all stripes to vote for him. Occasions like this, in large cities and small cities throughout America, altering minds one room at a time. Perhaps sufficient individuals will see him in individual and listen to the earnestness in his voice. Perhaps they’ll conclude that Pence has been a remarkably savvy politician, keen to endure humiliation in an effort to enact the kind of conservative agenda the fitting has been dreaming of since Pence was in faculty. Perhaps a few of the individuals he encounters as he excursions the nation will marvel if God put Mike Pence within the White Home to steer Donald Trump in the fitting path — then put him within the Capitol that day to guard our nation.
Alternatively, many argue that Pence enabled Trump for years earlier than lastly splitting with him forward of Jan. 6, that he used his spiritual credentials as cowl for his operating mate. Pence supported Trump regardless of a number of accusations of sexual harassment. Regardless of Trump repeatedly questioning the legitimacy of elections for years.
I ask Pence if he thinks that standing by Trump by all of that and extra might need truly led to Jan. 6, 2021 — and if that makes him culpable or accountable in any respect for what occurred that day.
“I’m extremely happy with the document of the Trump-Pence administration,” he tells me. “Previous to the disagreement that got here to a head within the days main as much as January 6, the president and I had a detailed working relationship. And regardless of our variations in private type, we have been each engaged on the identical agenda.”
Pence reiterates that he’s happy with his partnership with Trump.
“On the finish of the day, it didn't finish properly,” he says. “However I imagine that we made our stand clear and we noticed our manner by to do our obligation that day. And I belief these days to the judgment of historical past for me and all these concerned.”
A fly lands on the pinnacle of Vice President Mike Pence in the course of the vice presidential debate Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2020, at Kingsbury Corridor on the campus of the College of Utah in Salt Lake Metropolis.
Justin Sullivan, Related Press
Earlier than we half that day on the church in Deville, there’s one thing else I've to know. It’s a query I’ve thought of asking since I realized I used to be going to fulfill with him.
The fly.
Throughout the vice presidential debate in 2020, as Pence sat throughout the desk from then-Sen. Kamala Harris, an enormous fly landed on his head. And stayed there. For what felt to viewers like hours. (It was truly about two minutes.) And Pence by no means swatted at it as soon as.
The fly turned an instantaneous and enduring meme, simply the standout second from the entire 2020 debates. The fly additionally turned a Rorschach check. Some individuals noticed Pence as stalwart, unflappable, targeted. Different individuals noticed Pence as a robotic, so devoted to his political mission that he’d in some way resist one of the crucial fundamental human reactions.
So, I ask the previous vice chairman of the US concerning the fly.
“How did you not swipe the fly?”
All through our interview, Pence has spoken slowly, parsing his solutions rigorously. However all of the sudden he’s speaking a little bit sooner, a little bit extra animated.
“Didn’t know he was there,” he says.
“You couldn’t really feel it,” I ask, in all probability sounding extra shocked than I imply to.
“I noticed him fly by,” Pence tells me. “And I assumed that’s a reasonably large fly on a tv present.”
He tells me that as quickly as he got here off the stage that evening, his household was ready there for him. A couple of individuals congratulated him on a great debate.
“Then my daughter-in-law, who I am keen on, checked out me and mentioned, ‘Do you know a fly landed in your head?’ And I mentioned, ‘What are you speaking about?’ And she or he mentioned, ‘It landed in your head.’ And I am going, ‘Nicely, how do you know?’ She mentioned, ‘As a result of he was there for some time.’ They usually all are nodding. And I mentioned, ‘Oh, OK.’”
We’re each laughing as he’s telling me this.
“In order that’s why I’ve mentioned I’ve been extremely blessed in my life, far past something I deserve. However after I get to glory, I’m in all probability going to ask the Lord —”
Pence pauses as he acts out his dialog with God.
“The fly,” he says. “Was that actually obligatory?”
Then our time collectively is over. He’s heading to the airport, off to proceed his quiet tour. He shakes my hand and thanks me for the questions.
“Particularly the one concerning the fly.”
It’s not clear what sort of likelihood Pence has in 2024. His testimony earlier than a grand jury investigating Jan. 6 may additional alienate him from Trump’s base. Or perhaps it may begin shifting opinions. It doesn't matter what, it looks like an extended, uphill battle, however the primaries are nonetheless a methods out. Numerous issues can occur.
There may very well be extra arrests, extra felony instances, extra lawsuits, some shock scandals. Political winds can change instructions shortly. One factor is clear, although. If the winds flip towards him, Mike Pence can be ready there with open arms and that trademark smile, able to proceed his faith-filled journey as president of the US.
Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at Utah Valley College in Orem on Sept. 20, 2022. Pence was a visitor of the college’s Herbert Institute for Public Coverage.
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information