A CNN panel slammed former vice president Mike Pence on Tuesday for downplaying the Jan. 6 insurrection in a Fox News interview on Monday night.
“From gallows to gaslight,” CNN host John Berman said at the start of a 10-minute segment about Pence that kicked off the network’s “New Day” program.
Berman pointed to calls from Capitol insurrectionists for Pence’s hanging, adding that in a “remarkable contortion,” the former vice president is now “redirecting blame.”
On Monday, Pence told Fox News host Sean Hannity: “I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administration’s failed agenda by focusing on one day in January. They want to use that one day to try to demean character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believe we could be strong again and prosperous again.”
Berman accused Pence of “telling it like it isn’t.”
“The media wasn’t chanting, ‘Hang Mike Pence,'” Berman said. “The insurrectionists were.”
“Pence makes it seem like this is some matter for Architectural Digest,” Berman added of the insurrection, referencing the vice president’s comment in the Hannity interview that, “It was a problem for the Capitol building on Jan. 6.”
CNN also played a clip from Pence’s interview in which he said he has a “strong relationship” with Trump and that they “parted amicably.”
Political commentator S.E. Cupp called the former vice president’s comments “grating.”
“The whole thing sounds a little delusional, not just the way he talks about Jan. 6, but also ‘parting amicably’ with the president,” Cupp said. “The president has been trashing him. He might be saying we’re in a good place, but per usual the loyalty flows one way. Trump is not returning the favor.”
“So you have to wonder … what is this for?” Cupp added. “Does he still want to raise money? Does he want influence? Does he think he’s to running for president someday? There are no natural Mike Pence voters. He lost Republicans like me who felt betrayed by Mike Pence for not being a stop-gap. And I think the Trump loyalists will never trust Mike Pence. Who is left? Who is clamoring for more Mike Pence? So this strategy, if you can call it one, makes very little sense to me.”
Host Brianna Keilar responded that by appearing on Hannity’s show, Pence was obviously attempting to court Trump loyalists.
“In a logical world, what would happen is, Trump would apologize to Pence,” Keilar said. “Instead, it’s Mike Pence — as so may Republicans who decided to break with Donald Trump a little bit around the insurrection — he’s now sucking up. He’s on full suck-up mode.”
Watch it below.