WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence plans to attend Joe Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration in a show of support for the peaceful transfer of power, according to a new report Thursday.
Sources close to the besieged vice president told Politico that Pence found the decision easy to make in the wake of President Trump’s public attacks against him after he refused to try and overturn Biden’s Electoral College victory.
“It was a much more difficult decision days ago, but less difficult now,” a person close to Pence told the publication.
Trump is expected to snub Biden’s presidential inauguration as he continues to claim the election was stolen from him.
Hundreds of the president’s supporters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday after attending a rally outside the White House where Trump gave a fiery speech in which he claimed the election was “rigged.”
Lawmakers had been sitting in a joint session of Congress, overseen by Pence as president of the Senate, to vote to confirm Biden’s electoral victory when they were violently interrupted by the rioters.
Ahead of the vote, Trump called on Pence to do “the right thing” and fight Wednesday’s certification of the election results in certain swing states — a request Pence declined, saying he took an oath to the Constitution.
Pence is reportedly furious with the commander in chief for making him the target of the angry crowds.
In a since-deleted tweet at the height of the violent scene, Trump expressed his displeasure at Pence for not carrying out his wishes, writing that he “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”