WASHINGTON (AP) — Days before rioters roamed the halls of the U.S. Capitol threatening to “hang Mike Pence,” Donald Trump told his vice president that people are going to “hate your guts” and “think you're stupid” if he failed to stop the 2020 election certification.
The New Year’s Day warning wasn’t the first time Trump pressured Pence to overturn the election results. Nor was it the last. In what came to be known as “Operation Pence Card,” Trump spent weeks publicly and privately pushing his vice president to help him stay in power after losing.
“You’re too honest,” Trump berated his vice president in that Jan. 1 morning call.
After they hung up, the president tweeted a reminder for his followers to come to Washington for the “BIG Protest Rally” just days away — what would become the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
The exchanges between the president and his vice president, detailed in special counsel Jack Smith’s court filing this week, show the extraordinary lengths Trump went to overturn the 2020 election, even as he lays the groundwork to challenge this year's contest, if he loses.
Pence is no longer standing beside Trump, and has refused to endorse the Republican nominee's bid to return to the White House. Trump and his new vice presidential running mate, JD Vance, still refuse to accept the 2020 election results that delivered the presidency to Joe Biden.
At a pivotal moment during this week's debate between Vance and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, Vance declined to say whether he accepted the results of the last election. In a stark retort, Walz said, “That’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage.”
Much of the special counsel’s filing recounts the tumultuous months after the November election, when Trump — surrounded by allies including Steve Bannon, his former campaign manager turned podcast host, who is now in jail after a contempt of Congress conviction — directed his team to fight to keep him in office. The former president, indicted on criminal charges in the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, called the new filing “election interference” and has sought to have the case dismissed.
The day after the election, Trump told Pence to “study up” on the claims of voter fraud in the states they had previously won, when they first ran for office together in 2016.
“It was just look at all of it, let me know what you think,” Pence recalled of their Nov. 4 phone call. “But he told me the campaign was going to fight, was going to go to court and make challenges.”
That weekend, as Biden was projected the winner, Pence tried to “encourage” Trump “as a friend” to consider all that he had accomplished.
“You took a dying party and gave it a new lease on life,” Pence told Trump on Nov. 7.
As the days went on, the campaign team was giving Trump what Pence described as a “sober and somewhat pessimistic report” on the state of the election challenges they were waging.
“Pence gradually and gently tried to convince the defendant to accept the lawful results of the election, even if it meant they lost,” the court filing said.
“Don’t concede but recognize the process is over,” Pence said he told his defeated running mate on Nov. 12.
Four days later at a private lunch, Pence encouraged the president to accept the results and run again in four years. “I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Trump responded, according to the filing.
By early December there was a shift. Trump was starting to think about Congress’ role in the election process.
“For the first time, he mentioned to Pence the possibility of challenging the election results in the House of Representatives,” the filing said, citing a Dec. 5 phone call.
It was the beginning of an intensifying public and private campaign, orchestrated by Trump, that in the coming weeks would bear down on Pence, and ultimately raise concern for his own safety. Some of the details are described in Pence’s own book, “So Help Me God."
Trump and his team of outside lawyers, headed by Rudy Giuliani, “developed a new plan” after their legal challenges all failed. It was focused on seven states Trump had lost, guided by a proposal from law professor John Eastman to create alternate slates of electors who would claim the defeated president, in fact, had won.
And they turned their attention to Pence.
They falsely claimed that Pence, in his ministerial role as president of the Senate, could decide on Jan. 6 which slates of electors to select, or send them both back to the states for reconsideration, the prosecutors said.
“They lied to Pence, telling him there was substantial campaign fraud and concealing their orchestration of the plan,” the prosecutor wrote. “And they lied to the public, falsely claiming that Pence had the authority during the certification proceeding to reject electoral votes."
Members of Trump’s campaign staff called the plan "crazy” and referred derogatorily to those organizing it as characters from the “Star Wars bar.”
Trump told Pence of his plans for a Jan. 6 rally and expressed the thought it would be a “big day,” the filing said.
As they had lunch together a couple days later, on Dec. 21, Pence again encouraged Trump not to look at the election as a loss but “just an intermission.”
Pence told the president that if they still came up short, “after we have exhausted every legal process in the courts and Congress,” then Trump should “take a bow.”
But Trump would not relent. On Dec. 23, Trump retweeted “Operation Pence Card,” and began to “directly and repeatedly pressure Pence,” prosecutors said, and continued “summoning” his supporters to amass in Washington.
On Christmas Day, when Pence called the president to wish him a Merry Christmas, Trump told him he had the discretion over certification while presiding in Congress.
“You know I don’t think I have the authority to change the outcome,” Pence said.
As Jan. 6 approached, the days were becoming more desperate for Trump. The president tore into his vice president during the New Year's morning phone call. The next day he asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” that could prove he won the election in that state. He later told Pence a senator would be seeking a 10-day delay in certification during the proceedings. “You can make the decision,“ Trump told Pence.
Pence took five pages of contemporaneous notes during a meeting at the White House when Trump directed his team to outline the plan for Pence and said, “When there’s fraud the rules change."
Pence told them, "I'm not seeing this argument working.”
"The conspirators were undeterred,” the prosecutor wrote, and Trump continued to publicly pressure Pence.
“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us,” Trump said at a rally in Georgia.
Meeting privately in the Oval Office on Jan. 5, the defeated president told his vice president once more, “I think you have the power to decertify."
When Pence was unmoved, Trump threatened to criticize him publicly: “I'm going to have to say you did a great disservice.”
This concerned Pence, the prosecutor wrote, and the vice president's Secret Service detail was alerted.
Trump called Pence later that evening, with his lawyers, to again raise the issue of sending the electors back to the states. Trump called Pence again late that night: “You gotta be tough tomorrow.”
The next morning, Jan. 6, before Trump took the rally stage, he made one more call to Pence.
When Pence again refused the request, the prosecutor wrote, Trump was incensed.
Trump reinserted remarks targeting Pence into his speech. And Trump sent a crowd of angry supporters to the Capitol.
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
In this image from video, Vice President Mike Pence speaks as the Senate reconvenes after protesters stormed into the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Senate Television via AP)
FILE - Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., top center, arrive along with other senators for a joint session of the House and Senate convenes to confirm the electoral votes cast in November's election, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
FILE - Vice President Mike Pence hands the electoral certificate from the state of Arizona to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as he presides over a joint session of Congress as it convenes to count the Electoral College votes cast in November's election, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP, File)
In this image from video, a security video shows Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated from near the Senate chamber as rioters breach the Capitol, on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. (Senate Television via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a government shutdown deadline, the Senate rushed through final passage early Saturday of a bipartisan plan that would temporarily fund federal operations and disaster aid, dropping President-elect Donald Trump's demands for a debt limit increase into the new year.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted Congress would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to shutter ahead of the Christmas holiday season. But the day's outcome was uncertain after Trump doubled down on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — if not, he said in an early morning post, let the closures “start now.”
The House approved Johnson's new bill overwhelmingly, 366-34. The Senate worked into the night to pass it, 85-11, just after the deadline. At midnight, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.
“This is a good outcome for the country, ” Johnson said after the House vote, adding he had spoken with Trump and the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”
President Joe Biden, who has played a less public role in the process throughout a turbulent week, was expected to sign the measure into law Saturday.
“There will be no government shutdown," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered House speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. And it raised stark questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry GOP colleagues, and work alongside Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, who called the legislative plays from afar.
Trump's last-minute demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around his pressure for a debt ceiling increase. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the GOP majority to pass any funding package, since many Republican deficit hawks prefer to slash the federal government and certainly wouldn’t allow more debt.
Instead, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate next year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing.
“So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?” scoffed Musk on social media ahead of the vote.
The drastically slimmed-down 118-page package would fund the government at current levels through March 14 and add $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.
Gone is Trump’s demand to lift the debt ceiling, which GOP leaders told lawmakers would be debated as part of their tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
It’s essentially the same deal that flopped the night before in a spectacular setback — opposed by most Democrats and some of the most conservative Republicans — minus Trump’s debt ceiling demand.
But it's far smaller than the original bipartisan accord Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.
House Democrats were cool to the latest effort after Johnson reneged on the hard-fought bipartisan compromise.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said it looked like Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, was calling the shots for Trump and Republicans.
“Who is in charge?” she asked during the debate.
Still, the House Democrats put up more votes than Republicans for the bill's passage. Almost three dozen conservative House Republicans voted against it.
“The House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans all across the nation,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, referring to Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan.
In the Senate, almost all the opposition came from the Republicans — except independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said Musk's interference was “not democracy, that's oligarchy.”
Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his sway with Congress, as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency.
The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees and is counting on Republicans for a big tax package. And Trump's not fearful of shutdowns the way lawmakers are, having sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted early in the morning on social media.
More important for the president-elect was his demand for pushing the thorny debt ceiling debate off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires Jan. 1, and Trump doesn't want the first months of his new administration saddled with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation's borrowing capacity. Now Johnson will be on the hook to deliver.
“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted — increasing his demand for a new five-year debt limit increase. "Without this, we should never make a deal."
Government workers had already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown that would send millions of employees — and members of the military — into the holiday season without paychecks.
Biden has been in discussions with Jeffries and Schumer, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Republicans blew up this deal. They did, and they need to fix this.”
As the day dragged on, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in to remind colleagues “how harmful it is to shut the government down, and how foolish it is to bet your own side won’t take the blame for it.”
At one point, Johnson asked House Republicans at a lunchtime meeting for a show of hands as they tried to choose the path forward.
It wasn’t just the shutdown, but the speaker’s job on the line. The speaker’s election is the first vote of the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, and some Trump allies have floated Musk for speaker.
Johnson said he spoke to Musk ahead of the vote Friday and they talked about the “extraordinary challenges of this job.”
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Capitol is pictured in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., emerges from a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., emerges from a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., talks with reporters after attending a meeting with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., as the House works on a spending bill to avert a shutdown of the Federal Government, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)
FILE - President-elect Donald Trump poses for a photo with Dana White, Kid Rock and Elon Musk at UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden, Nov. 16, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks briefly to reporters just before a vote on an interim spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. The vote failed to pass. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
