{"id":848813,"date":"2026-06-06T16:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/848813\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:13:17","slug":"mike-pence-says-jan-6-rioters-who-assaulted-police-never-should-have-been-pardoned-on-real-time-with-bill-maher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/848813\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Pence Says Jan. 6 Rioters Who Assaulted Police \u201cNever Should Have Been Pardoned\u201d on \u2018Real Time With Bill Maher\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Vice President Mike Pence<\/a> revisited one of the most defining moments of his political career during Friday night\u2019s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher<\/a>, where a conversation about President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s sweeping Jan. 6 pardons quickly turned to the Capitol riot itself \u2014 and the mob that famously called for Pence to be hanged.<\/p>\n

Maher raised the subject while arguing that Americans should be able to separate the actions of different groups of people who were at the Capitol that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it seems like we could so many of these things we could come to some agreement with the middle,\u201d Maher said. Referring to Trump\u2019s decision to pardon participants in the riot, he suggested that some people may have been there without the same intentions as those who turned violent.<\/p>\n

But Maher also drew a distinction between those attendees and, as he put it, \u201cthe ones who wanted to hang you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we say those were bad people?\u201d he asked Pence.<\/p>\n

The former vice president didn\u2019t leave much room for interpretation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Bill, you know, I made it clear. I had no problem with the president pardoning people who got caught up in that day,\u201d Pence responded. \u201cBut for anyone who assaulted a police officer, anybody that violated and vandalized the seat of our government, and sought to disrupt the counting of electoral college votes, those people never should have been pardoned, and they should never get a dime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maher then shifted the conversation to a more personal question, asking whether Pence ever genuinely believed the threats against him could become reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, no ill feelings about the hanging thing?\u201d Maher asked. \u201cDid you ever fear for your life? Did you actually fear that they would, that that could happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pence said his mindset that day was shaped less by fear than by a sense of responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest with you, I never felt a greater sense of resolve any day of my life than on January 6,\u201d he said, before reflecting on both his faith and the constitutional duties of the vice president.<\/p>\n

Pence went on to argue that his role during the certification of the 2020 election was limited and clearly defined.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the Constitution, the vice president\u2019s role is only to preside over a session of Congress where the electoral college votes are opened and counted. That\u2019s it,\u201d he said. \u201cNo vice president in history has asserted any authority to decide what votes to count or send back to the states. So I knew my duty was clear and I\u2019ll always believe by God\u2019s grace I did my duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exchange ended up being one of the evening\u2019s most memorable segments, with Maher repeatedly returning to Jan. 6 and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the certification of the election. <\/p>\n

For his part, Pence stuck to the position he has maintained since leaving office: that his constitutional obligation was to oversee the count, regardless of the pressure being applied from outside the Capitol \u2014 or inside the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Vice President Mike Pence revisited one of the most defining moments of his political career during Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":848814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[4087,171,5560,15467,346907,80,5150,16688,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-848813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bill-maher","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-late-night","tag-mike-pence","tag-politics","tag-talk-show","tag-talk-shows","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}