T he New Year’s Day phone spat is illuminating, because it’s the moment Pence finally sees the light. And yet, the book is also singularly frustrating, tortured in its appraisal of so many history-making moments and reluctant to reflect meaningfully on the author’s view of them. It does offer a truly distinctive window into the Trump phenomenon, from unlikely election winner to unwilling election loser, recounting conversations and deliberations to which he alone was privy.
In the growing library of Trump White House tell-alls published by staffers, family members, and grifters of a general sort, Pence’s could have been the most intimate. The anecdote speaks to what makes Pence’s book utterly captivating-and equally unsatisfying. “If it gives you power,” Trump asked Pence, “why would you oppose it?” The president could not comprehend his reasoning. Pence, in turn, had enlisted lawyers from the Department of Justice to defeat the “frivolous” lawsuit, which he considered an affront to the Constitution. A few days earlier, Louie Gohmert, the far-right representative from Texas, had joined other Republican officials in filing a federal lawsuit that would have given Pence “exclusive authority and sole discretion” to decide which electoral votes would be counted on January 6. Tearing into Pence over the phone-“hundreds of thousands are gonna hate your guts,” the president told him-Trump was vexed about one thing in particular.
