Donald Trump is collecting new enemies in his quest to remain in the news with a potential run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. The twice-impeached former head of state and failed blogger is apparently furious with Florida governor Ron DeSantis for even thinking about campaigning for the gig himself. And as it turns out the Twitter-less Trump has frustrated even his closest allies well before the January 6 insurrection attempt that made him a disgrace among all but his biggest supporters.
In a lengthy inside look at the final days of his presidency from the Wall Street Journal, new details about a fiery interaction between Trump and then-vice president Mike Pence emerged on Thursday. The piece is full of the usual Trump bizarro world things like potentially hiring people with neo-Nazi ties and “crazies” taking over his administration in the waning months as he tried in vain to find ways to overturn his election loss. But there was also a description of a conflict that showed just how off-base Trump was from reality years before he convinced himself he won an election he lost by millions of votes and a sizable margin in the Electoral College.
By January, Mr. Trump’s attention had turned to his vice president, who was responsible for presiding over the Jan. 6 congressional certification of the election. The two men had debated for weeks whether Mr. Pence could reject the results.
Trump, as you likely recall, wanted Pence to overturn the election and declare him the winner instead of certifying the Electoral College results on January 6, which was generally seen as a ceremonial job more than anything until Trump’s wonky constitutional scholars started looking for long shots. Pence, of course, said no and got a crowd of Trump-fueled insurrectionists storming the US Capitol trying to find and kill him for his efforts. But it apparently wasn’t the first time he’d stood up to Trump.
The only example some administration officials could remember was in 2018, when Mr. Pence’s political committee hired Corey Lewandowski, the president’s ubiquitous adviser. Mr. Trump was holding a newspaper article about the hiring and said it made him look weak, like his team was abandoning him as he was probed for his campaign’s role in Russian election meddling. He crumpled the article and threw it at his vice president. “So disloyal,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Pence lost it. Mr. Kushner had asked him to hire Mr. Lewandowski, and he had discussed the plan with Mr. Trump over lunch. Mr. Pence picked up the article and threw it back at Mr. Trump. He leaned toward the president and pointed a finger a few inches from his chest. “We walked you through every detail of this,” Mr. Pence snarled. “We did this for you—as a favor. And this is how you respond? You need to get your facts straight.”
It’s certainly the most animated report we’ve seen about Pence’s behavior, as he’s distanced himself from Trump in recent months to say the least but not said anything notably critical of him publicly. The report, which has plenty of behind-the-scenes details about the final days in Trumpworld, certainly makes it clear that Trump was frustrating just about everyone who worked with him. Even well ahead of his spiral into delusion about the election that’s continued into the present.