Mike Pence Tells ABC’s David Muir ‘The President’s Words Were Reckless’ On January 6

On the morning of January 6, Donald Trump talked to his vice president on the phone and he wasn’t happy with what Mike Pence had to say. “The President became very irate on the phone,” Pence tells ABC’s David Muir. “He— he said that if (Pence would not help him by somehow stepping in to prevent the ceremonial certification of the 2020 presidential election) that he made a mistake five years ago. Call ended fairly quickly.”

Asked about a tweet sent by the president that day, suggesting that the vice president had betrayed Trump—a message may believe put Mr. Pence’s life in danger—Pence said “the president’s words were reckless. (Trump) endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building.”

In an interview set to air Monday night on World News Tonight and then in a one-hour prime time special “Breaking with the President: The Mike Pence Interview” at 10 p.m. ET on ABC, Pence describes the tense hours he spent in the Capitol that day, from being rushed to a secure location with his family to working the phones trying to defend the building from rioting supporters of Donald Trump.

Pence tells Muir he made phone calls from a loading area where his security team had brought him and his family, speaking with the secretary of defence and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Pence was leading the administration’s efforts to defend the Capitol while—he later learned—the president was watching live coverage of the rioting on television. “I can’t account for what the president’s doing that day. I was at a loading dock in the Capitol where a riot was taking place.

“Why wasn’t the president making these calls?” Muir asks Pence, who responds, “That’d be a good question for him.”