In a call to then-Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of January 6, then-President Donald Trump said he was not “firm enough” to call off the election and called him “weak,” according to testimony gathered by the House Election Commission. investigating the Capitol attack in 2021
Mr Pence’s former adviser, lawyer Greg Jacob, told the commission on Thursday that Mr Pence had received a call at the vice-president’s residence on the morning of 6 January.
House Democrat Pete Aguilar, a Democrat from California, said members of the Trump family were present in the Oval Office during the conversation with Pence, adding that they and others spoke with the committee about the conversation.
Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, told the commission in pre-recorded testimony that this “was not a concrete, formal discussion, it was very free and relaxed.”
“The conversation was quite heated,” Ms. Trump added.
Former Trump aide Nicholas Luna told the committee, “I remember hearing the word ‘weak.’
“Or call him weak, I don’t remember, he said ‘you’re weak, you’ll be weak’ – the word I remember is weak,” Mr Luna added.
General Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser to Mr Pence, told the group that Mr Trump had told Mr Pence that “you are not firm enough to call”.
Ms. Trump said, “It was a different tone than I had heard him talk to the vice president before.”
Julie Radford, a former Trump chief of staff, said she had told her that “her father had just had a disappointing conversation with the vice president.”
Ms. Radford said Ms. Trump said her father called Mr. Pence the “U-word.”
Mr Jacob said that when Mr Pence returned to his staff after the call, he looked “steely, determined, gloomy”.
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