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NASHVILLE – Former President Donald Trump used an evangelistic conference here to ridicule former President Mike Pence for defending the Constitution on January 6, 2021, choosing an audience that represented Pence’s political base as a place to try to undermine it.
“Mike Pence had a chance to be great. He had a chance to be historic,” Trump said in his first statements about his former government partner amid January 6 committee hearings that revealed the intense pressure Pence endured to decide to move forward with his constitutional role certifying the election. “Mike didn’t have the guts to act.” He added: “Mike was afraid of anything he feared.”
Trump also referred to Pence, who did not attend the conference, as a “human conveyor belt” for his role in advancing the election process, saying he had considered labeling it a “robot.” Trump’s own aides have testified that they told the president it would not be constitutional for Pence to move to cancel the election.
Pence’s spokesman did not respond to Trump’s speech. Several people close to Pence said they believe the time will come to reclaim the former president’s position on Jan. 6 among conservative voters, though Trump continues to reprimand him for refusing to relinquish his ceremonial oversight role. polling station count.
In an interview earlier this week, Marc Short, who was Pence’s chief of staff, said he believed Pence’s shares would eventually pile up in his favor. “The arc of history will lean towards what he did,” he said.
On Friday afternoon, Trump delivered the keynote address at the Coalition of Faith and Freedom’s annual Road to Majority conference, which served as a preview of what the 2024 GOP presidential camp might look like. But Pence, along with other potential candidates presidential candidates, chose not to attend. Apart from Trump, no other speaker mentioned the events of January 6 during the first days of the conference.
The 90-minute speech was the first time Trump has delivered an in-person rebuttal to the January 6 committee acts, which have so far been issued to the public in three dramatic installments. His comments, and his attacks on Pence, were met with applause from the Conservative crowd.
The former president aggressively tried to refute the story of the planned sedition that arises from the hearings. Trump told the conference that he hoped to return the 2020 elections to the state legislatures instead of directly annulling them, a move that experts said would have violated the constitution.
Pence was also invited to attend the convention, but chose not to, said Ralph Reed, the organization’s founder, who is close to the two men. “If Mike Pence wanted to come and want to offer a reply to these people, he could have done so,” Reed said at a luncheon with reporters Friday afternoon. “I’m not saying I should have done that.”
Reed said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was also invited, but did not attend.
The conference represented the first major gathering of potential GOP 2024 candidates, giving them the opportunity to begin testing messages with one of the most influential audiences in Republican presidential policy: evangelical leaders and activists.
Attacks on President Biden and Democrats focused on high inflation, high gas prices and references to the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Most added populist strains to their arguments, with beards targeting Big Tech and corporate leaders. And it all touched on cultural issues, lamenting coronavirus protocols, the school curriculum, and the changes in gender identity that the left embraces.
Trump also hinted that he might seek the White House again, at a time when he is reflecting on “our next Republican president” and adding, “I wonder who he will be.” He paused as the crowd of about 2,000 in attendance gave him a standing ovation.
“Would anyone like me to run for president?” Trump asked, as the crowd whistled, applauded, and some began singing “USA.”
But he was not the only one to test the waters. Sen. Tim Scott (SC), who addressed the crowd Friday morning, walked back and forth across the ballroom stage and predicted Republicans would win majorities in the House and Senate in the November, and then, raising his hands, he added, “And after two years, I have a dream,” a reference to the Rev. Martin Luther King.
He paused to applaud and then described the dream of GOP control in Washington. “We’ll show the United States how you recover from a punch,” Scott said.
Senator Rick Scott (Florida), another Republican looking at a 2024 race to head the GOP Senate campaign arm, said he is optimistic about the GOP’s chances in November. “The reaction is coming,” he said.
Scott also referred to his controversial plan to raise federal income taxes for about half of Americans.
The plan was widely seen as an attempt to open a presidential platform, and Democrats have taken it as evidence that the GOP will implement tough policies with the poor. “It’s not for the faint of heart,” the Florida senator said. “It will scare the hearts of some Republicans.”
Reed’s group made a great effort to reach the leaders of the Hispanic faith, incorporating several hundred of them. Some of the first words of the program were in Spanish. A “Night of Prayer and Worship” included two prayers delivered in Spanish and translated into English and a Cuban band.
The three-day conference is held in an air-conditioned ballroom at Nashville’s extensive Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. Vendors outside the conference room were selling iodine pills to protect themselves from the effects of a nuclear crash ($ 35 for a seven-day supply) and pro-Trump T-shirts, including one of the best-selling with the phrase “Trump told you so.” A booth promoted pregnancy counseling services.
Potential candidates for the GOP presidency portrayed Democrats as something more than the opposition, but as an almost anti-American force that does not like the country. “The left wants nothing less than a revolution,” Nikki Haley, the UN ambassador to the Trump administration, said in a keynote address on Thursday. “His will be the opposite of 1776. They take us back.”
Scott went further: “Our country’s militant left has become the enemy from within.” He paused to let the audience absorb his message. “You think it’s pretty dramatic, right? To call them the enemy from within.”
Scott suggested the country needs corporal punishment. “Change is a form of encouragement from the south,” he said, after explaining how his mother used to hit him with one to push him to focus more on school. “Sometimes I look at our country today and I think we need a new form of stimulus.”
MP Jim Jordan (Ohio), who said he hoped Trump would run again, also touched on the issue. “The left doesn’t like the country,” he said. “They don’t like people doing things, making them grow and moving them.”
Several spoke about Ukraine, with Haley telling a story about how she broke protocol by meeting with Ukrainians before meeting with the Russians as a UN ambassador. He used his admiration for Ukrainian fighters to clarify what he says is a lack of comparative patriotism that he senses in the United States.
“I have a confession,” Haley said. “I look at the Ukrainian people and I realize that before we had this kind of patriotism. That used to be us. We had this great American spirit and we have to get it back.”
There will be additional speakers, including Senate candidate Hershel Walker of Georgia, who will take the stage on Saturday.
Aside from directing anger at Pence, Trump has also been outraged by other former advisers who have testified, such as Short, Bill Stepien and former Attorney General William P. Barr, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity. talk about private conversations, and has focused heavily on audiences, although some of his advisors have tried to minimize his interest.
During his speech on Friday, Trump alleged that Barr was too scared to be fired for speaking on his behalf. “Bill Barr was afraid of certain things. You know what they are,” Trump said.