Ex-Trump Official to CNN: Pence Has ‘Erect Posture and Flaccid Conscience’

Miles Taylor, the former Trump administration official who anonymously warned about the dangers of a second Trump term prior to the 2020 election, had some choice words on Tuesday to describe former Vice President Mike Pence.

During a panel discussion on CNN Tonight touching on Pence’s potential presidential ambitions, Taylor, who resigned as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in June 2019, described Pence’s time in office as heavily deferential to the commander in chief.

“If you want to know what the Mike Pence vice presidency was like, Mike Pence is a guy with an erect posture and flaccid conscience. He stood up tall but he did not stand up to Donald Trump. We just saw it in that clip,” Taylor said, referring to a speech Pence gave before the Young America’s Foundation earlier Tuesday. In it, Pence emphasized turning to the future and downplayed any possible differences between him and former President Donald Trump “on issues,” saying instead that the two “may differ on focus.”

“They do disagree on the ‘hanging Mike Pence’ issue,” New York Times reporter Alex Burns quipped in response to Pence’s comments. “That’s a place where they do not have the same agenda.” (Trump, according to the House Jan. 6 committee, seemed to like the idea of Pence being hanged after hearing that some of his supporters were calling for it during the insurrection.)

And as Taylor put it, Pence “stood up tall in that speech but he still—after people trying to assassinate him—could not stand up to Donald Trump and say, ‘We don’t disagree on the issues.’ That tells you everything you need to know about Mike Pence.”

Pence, whose upcoming memoir delves into Trump’s “severing of their relationship on Jan. 6” criticized Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to get him to thwart the democratic process in a February speech. “President Trump is wrong,” Pence told a Federalist Society gathering. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.