Mike Pence gets asked why he’s a TRAITOR at the Iowa State Fair : Ex-VP insists he was ‘always loyal’ to ‘friend’ Trump until January 6 – as he pushes ex-president to take the debate stage

  • Former Vice President Mike Pence made his Iowa State Fair debut Thursday 
  • He attracted several hecklers and one audience member who asked: ”Why did you commit treason on January 6 and not stand by President Trump?”  

Pence appeared on day No. 1 of the 10-day event in Des Moines with wife Karen at his side, taking the stage of Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox late Thursday afternoon.

He attracted two prominent hecklers – one MAGA fan who yelled, ‘You made a big mistake Mike!’ and a Jewish liberal who briefly held up a sign behind the ex vice president that read: ‘Make Abortion Kosher Again.’

But it was an audience member’s question that turned heads: ‘Why did you commit treason on January 6 and not stand by President Trump?’ the man asked.

That prompted anger from another member of the crowd who yelled, ‘I’m a veteran buddy, shut your mouth.’

Pence took the question in stride.

‘That’s a fair question. Look, come on people, that’s why I came,’ Pence said.

He pointed to the oath he took to the Constitution the day he and Trump were inaugurated on January 20, 2017.

‘Now I know you might have a different impression about what my duties and responsibilities were on January 6 and I’m happy to talk to you about them,’ he said, encouraging the man to read the founding document.

It reads that the vice president, on the sixth of January, ‘shall’ count the Electoral College votes.

‘It doesn’t say may, it doesn’t say you can send them back to the states, it doesn’t say you can reject votes, even though my former running mate and many of his outside lawyers told me that that authority was there, I knew there never was,’ he said.

‘I mean look there’s almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could pick the American president,’ Pence argued.

He expanded upon that when talking to reporters after his Soapbox appearance.

‘I understand the disappointment with the election in 2020, remember I was on the ballot,’ he pointed out. ‘But our country is more important than any one man, our Constitution is more important than one man’s career – including mine – so I’m going to continue to tell the truth about what I did that day and why I did it.’

‘But I will tell you, stepping off, I have to tell you, I occassionally hear people ask questions like that, I’m always more than happy to answer, but the vast majority of people who speak to me about that painful day thank me,’ he noted.

One attendee walked by Pence during his tour of the fairgrounds Thursday and uttered, ‘I’m glad they didn’t hang you,’ video from Iowa Starting Line showed.

Looking ahead to the first Republican debate, which will be held August 23 in Milwaukee, Pence encouraged his former boss to join the lineup.

 ‘I think everybody should be there,’ he answered.

He also suggested he would be unfazed going toe-to-toe with Trump.

‘People ask me sometimes what I think about maybe debating Donald Trump, I tell people I’ve debated Donald Trump a thousand times, just not with the cameras on,’ he noted.

Pence also said he planned to showcase the successes of the Trump-Pence administration while onstage in Milwaukee.

‘You know I was always loyal to President Donald Trump. He was my president, he was my friend. And that loyalty never wavered until the day came that my oath to the Constitution required me to do otherwise,’ Pence said. ‘But I’m proud of that record.’