2020 ELECTION/MIKE PENCE: “In a Dec. 5 call, the president [Donald Trump] for the first time mentioned challenging the [2020] election results in Congress…
Early on New Year’s Day, the phone rang. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and other Republicans had filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to declare that I had “exclusive authority and sole discretion” to decide which electoral votes should count. ‘I don’t want to see ‘Pence Opposes Gohmert Suit’ as a headline this morning,’ the president said. I told him I did oppose it. “If it gives you the power,” he asked, ‘why would you oppose it?’ I told him, as I had many times, that I didn’t believe I possessed that power under the Constitution.
‘You’re too honest,’ he chided. ‘Hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts. . . . People are gonna think you’re stupid.’ …
The president laid into me. ‘You’ll go down as a wimp,’ he said. ‘If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago!'”
-Mike Pence, “Mike Pence: My Last Days With Donald Trump,” wsj.com, November 9, 2022