Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) stated that former Vice President Pence’s life “wasn’t really in peril” when former President Trump allegedly stated “So what?” on Jan. 6, 2021, in response to an aide alerting the previous president that his vp had been taken to a safe location.
CNN’s Manu Raju requested Mast in regards to the alleged remark — revealed in newly unsealed submitting from Particular Counsel Jack Smith — on “Inside Politics” Thursday.
“What is your response to the president’s apparent reaction to his then vice president’s life being in danger?” Raju requested
“I don’t think … that should be categorized as anything other than hyperbole right there,” Mast stated. “He had—”
“I think it’s based on the evidence that the prosecutors filed,” Raju responded.
“He has Secret Service protection. Now, at that time, we thought that Secret Service protection was the gold standard of protection, and they would be keeping him safe,” Mast stated. “He was below safety, OK. He’s being delivered to a safe facility, OK. That’s one thing that’s being achieved. It doesn’t actually require a substantial amount of thought,” Mast stated.
“And he wasn’t really in peril, that’s the truth of the situations,” Mast added.
“They were saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence at the Capitol, you don’t think his life was in peril?” Raju requested.
“His life wasn’t really in peril, he was protected by Secret Service,” Mast stated.
Mast’s delicate dig on the Secret Service comes after a gunman was capable of fireplace a number of photographs on the former president throughout a rally in Pennsylvania this summer season, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear.
Trump has blasted the discharge of the newly-unsealed courtroom submitting in his election interference case in Washington D.C., arguing that it quantities to election interference. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, beforehand known as Smith’s submitting “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional.”
Mast’s evaluation of the dangers dealing with Pence clashes with that of a former State of affairs Room officer, who stated in an interview earlier this 12 months that Pence got here “close” to being killed on Jan. 6, through the riot on the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s important to me that we don’t forget that it did come that close, and that we did have discussions, ‘If we lose the [vice president,] if the 25th [Amendment] is invoked,’” Mike Stiegler stated in Could throughout an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We started running through all of these game plans because it was getting close.”
Stiegler additionally agreed with Stephanopoulos when he referred to the Jan. 6. riot as involving “our personal individuals” and “inspired” by Trump.
“But at the time, that’s not even in the forefront of our mind,” Stiegler continued. “It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here. How do we execute? How do we move forward?”
The Hill has reached out to the Secret Service for remark.
