
Pence emboldened by positive reaction after his declaration that 'Trump is wrong'
CNN
Mike Pence did not initially intend to admonish former President Donald Trump during a long-planned speech last week. But a pair of statements from Trump criticizing Pence's actions on January 6, 2021, were the final straw, said two people close to the former vice president. He had to say something.
In the hours after his stunning rebuke of his onetime running mate, Pence fielded calls from donors, Republican lawmakers and top conservative leaders eager to privately applaud him. His speech to a gathering of conservative legal minds had caught their attention after he declared -- in no uncertain terms -- that "Trump is wrong" in his insistence that Pence could have unilaterally overturned the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Buried deep in his remarks at a Federalist Society conference near Orlando, Pence defended his actions last January, including his refusal to reject the Electoral College votes in states Trump had lost. Trump's repeated suggestions that his vice president could have rejected those ballots was "un-American," Pence said.