The niece of former U.S. President Donald Trump made some comments that were jarring to some.
She implied that the death of a hand-selected member of Trump’s administration, former Vice President Mike Pence, could have acted as an excuse for Trump to do something “absolutely radical” in order to remain in power.
Mary Trump publicly expressed her belief on Friday that her uncle had all but “handed down a death sentence to Mike Pence” back in January of 2021 when a mass of the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in an attempt to stop the certification of the presidential election results, which saw Trump lose to current U.S. President Joe Biden.
While law enforcement officers attempted to disperse the crowds and temper the chaos of many, the Capitol building itself was breached, leaving many lawmakers in possible danger.
A chant broke out amongst Trump’s supporters that day, calling for Pence to be hanged for refusing to go along with Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election had been stolen from him through means of widespread voter fraud.
Mary Trump made her comments during an interview with MSNBC News following a harsh spotlight being shone on the former president’s alleged pressuring of Pence to halt the certification of the election by the House Select Committee investigating the events of and leading up to the Capitol riot.
Even with building pressure being placed upon him from Trump, his allies, and his supporters, Pence refused to make any moves to stop the verification of Biden’s win, insisting that he “had no right to overturn the election.”
“I believe that nothing short of criminal indictments will be satisfactory enough,” Trump’s own niece said. “We need to make sure that everybody involved in this is held accountable and that people like Donald certainly at least are never allowed to run for office again in this country.”
“He needed an excuse to do something absolutely radical, like perhaps call for martial law and the death of his vice president would have fulfilled that for him,” she went on. “I think one of the things that was shocking about yesterday’s hearing in particular was how people who had been around Donald for years still didn’t seem to understand the depths he would sink to, or the lengths he would go to, to get his way.”
Just last month in an interview, the former president doubled down and confirmed that he still feels “greatly disappointed” in his vice president for the fact that Pence chose not to overturn the 2020 election results.
“He’s just very greatly disappointed me,” Trump said. “He had a great opportunity and all he had to do was just send it back to the legislatures, let them decide. So, I’m very disappointed at the stance he took.”
