What Did Former Vice President Mike Pence Do on Jan. 6? Inside the Details of a New Book
The January 6 insurrection is still a hot topic, specifically as it relates to those who were at the center of it.
Published Oct. 27 2025, 1:05 p.m. ET
Despite occurring over four years ago, the details and events surrounding the January 6 insurrection are still a hot topic, specifically as it relates to those who were at the center of it, such as former Vice President Mike Pence.
In a forthcoming book set to be released about the attack on the U.S. Capitol, new details about Mike Pence and Donald Trump’s frayed relationship at the time (and also in the present) have been revealed.
What did Mike Pence do on Jan. 6?
If you go back to the initial fallout from the Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump publicly (and privately) made it known that he believed that Pence did not do enough to support him.
Trump took issue with the fact that Pence, while presiding over the Jan. 6 congressional joint session to count the 2020 electoral votes, refused to use his position to overturn the election votes and falsely claim that Trump and Pence won the 2020 presidential election instead of former President Joe Biden.
Per The Washington Post, Pence was not evacuated from the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection until almost 15 minutes after the attacks began.
A new book has revealed alleged communication between Pence and Trump during that time.
In his new book, Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America, ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl shares handwritten notes from the former vice president mere hours before the insurrection, according to ABC News.
"You'll go down as a wimp," Trump allegedly told Pence regarding his refusal to block the certification of the 2020 election results of former President Joe Biden, per Pence’s handwritten notes, which were written after a phone call with Trump just before MAGA supporters stormed the Capitol.
"If you do that, I made a big mistake five years ago," Pence wrote of what Trump told him, per the book. Pence also drew an angry emoji after Trump allegedly told him, “You listen to the wrong people."
"You're not protecting our country, you're supposed to support + defend our country," Pence’s notes read, per the book. "I said we both [took] an oath to support + defend the Constitution. It doesn't take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law."
The book’s claims mirror what Pence recalled in his memoir, So Help Me God, that Trump did indeed call him just before Trump was set to address the “Save America” rally on the Ellipse to encourage him to block Biden’s election certification.
Multiple reports of the tense relationship between Pence and Trump have been well-documented.
According to a report from the New York Times in 2022, former assistant Nicholas Luna also alleged that Trump repeatedly insulted Pence.
"I remember hearing the word 'wimp.' Either he called him a wimp — I don't remember if he said, 'you are a wimp, you'll be a wimp' — wimp is the word I remember," he said at the time. Ivanka Trump also confirmed the situation, stating that their conversation was “pretty heated.”
Per the outlet, Trump also allegedly told Pence that he would “either go down in history as a patriot [or] you can go down in history as a p---y.”