Chris Hayes opened up Thursday’s episode of MSNBC’s “All In” with a lengthy look at the floundering GOP primary campaign of former Vice President Mike Pence. But while Hayes had some very pithy things to say about Pence — “a somewhat ridiculous figure… doing a bad impersonation of a politician,” for instance — Hayes’ bigger point concerned the question of how Pence expects to win at all.
Hayes noted that Pence is very unpopular with Republican voters precisely because he refused to help Donald Trump overthrow the government in 2021. Which got him wondering if, perhaps, Pence is betting his political future on Donald Trump actually being held accountable for his crimes.
“Mike Pence is of course in a rather unique position,” Hayes said as he explained how the ex-VEEP was in Iowa on Thursday night as part of his campaign. “Not only was he number two to the twice-impeached, twice-indicted ex-President, Donald Trump. He is now running against his former boss for the Republican nomination.”
“I have to say, Mike Pence has always struck me as a somewhat ridiculous figure. He always sounds like he’s doing a bad impersonation of a politician. But his biggest obstacle in the Republican primaries? The voters do not seem to like him very much,” Hayes said.
“Despite his real advantage on name recognition, just 7% of Republican primary voters say they would vote for Pence if the primary election were held today. And this is even more damning for him: 37% have a negative opinion of the former vice president, compared to 33% of primary voters who view him positively, according to that same NBC News poll. That’s what we in the business call ‘underwater on favorability,’” Hayes continued.
Hayes noted that the reason for this is that Donald Trump remains the overwhelming front-runner, and to this day Trump blames Pence for refusing to help him conduct a coup. While reminding viewers of this, Hayes also detailed how on Jan. 6, as Trump incited the mob that attacked the Capitol, he also attacked Pence,
“Donald Trump clearly, and almost explicitly painted a target on his vice president’s back on Jan. 6,” Hayes said, noting that Pence “had every reason to know that he was in physical danger.”
This prompted Hayes to play a clip of a very disturbing interaction Pence had on Thursday in Iowa with a Republican caucus member. You can see the whole exchange in the video above, but the gist is this: The elderly woman repeated Trump’s numerous lies about how the 2020 election was stolen, and could have been legally overturned by the Vice President. And she blamed Pence for Trump not winning a second term.
Pence, meanwhile, couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge that Joe Biden won overwhelmingly in 2020 — he was speaking to a Republican crowd — but he did firmly reject the theory he had any power at all to undo the election.
Pence, notably, got some applause for this, but it was mild, something Hayes noted when the clip ended. But, he said, “after so many years following Donald Trump, it is just surprising, almost bracing, to just hear a politician attempt to persuade people with a series of sequential arguments, by drawing on facts.”
Nevertheless, Hayes argued, the crowd really didn’t respond that strongly to Pence’s defense of the U.S. constitution. “That exchange that we just saw is such a clear illustration of not only Mike Pence’s problem, but our collective political problem. I mean, here he is in a room with a selection of interested Republican caucus goers in Iowa, people who make up the base of one of the two major parties and coalitions, and he cannot get them to buy his explanation for why undoing the entire American constitutional order was not the right thing to do.”
Noting the futility of trying to convince the mainstream of the Republican party that Trump lost in 2020, Hayes said, “it really makes you wonder why Pence is even trying at all. Again, like I said, ambition makes people do crazy things. But I will also say you have to remember that Mike Pence knows the actual facts of what happened on Jan. 6 Better than almost anyone.”
And then he tied this back to the ongoing investigation into Trump’s role in Jan. 6, conducted by the same special counselor who indicted him on charges related to illegal possession of classified documents. Pence, Hayes said, “had conversations with Donald Trump [on Jan. 6] that no one else had. He has also cooperated with special counsel Jack Smith… so he probably has a good sense about where that case is going and what it may look like.”
“And maybe Mike Pence is making a bet: Electoral chances may not look very good right now, and he may not be able to go convince every last Republican, one by one, [that[ he did the right thing on January 6. But maybe, who knows, some further developments, like an actual criminal case, could change the outlook,” Hayes concluded.
