The relationship between former Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump hasn’t exactly been cordial since Trump incited an angry mob of his supporters to lead an attack on the Capitol building on Jan. 6, especially since Pence refused to do Trump’s bidding and confirmed Joe Biden as President on that fateful day, The Independent [1] reports. As it turns out, the relationship is distant enough that Trump was unaware that Pence underwent heart surgery earlier this month, only finding out about it via social media.
The former president asked Pence time and again to “come through” for him and refuse to certify Biden as the next president but Pence showed a bit of backbone for once and certified the electoral college’s votes.
Pence underwent heart surgery earlier this month but only alerted a few family members and aides beforehand, per CNN. [2] More than a few former aides were caught off guard by a statement he released where he said he was experiencing “symptoms associated with a slow heart rate” for the past two weeks. A pacemaker was implanted [3] during the procedure.
A pair of sources familiar with the situation said Trump only found out about Pence’s surgery through media reports, adding that the former president called him to wish him well.
Since Trump’s departure from office in January 2021, the two men have spoken at least once a month on the phone, but they have not met in person since then.
Now Pence is looking to shore up his political career for a potential presidential run in 2024 and gave his first public speech since leaving office. He used the occasion to discuss what he thinks the Trump administration accomplished.
“In 48 months the Trump-Pence administration achieved the lowest unemployment (Snopes [4] has a different opinion about this), the highest household incomes (which actually [5] slowed to a crawl), the most energy production (nope [6] and nope [7]) with the most pro-American trade deals, the most secure border (do I really have to say anything here?) and the strongest military in the history of our country (questionable [8] at best).”
Hopefully, neither Trump nor Pence will run but it will be interesting to see if Pence finds his backbone ever again.