As a part of his complete flop of a book tour, Mike Pence keeps trying to have it all ways on Donald Trump, taking credit for the most extreme elements of the MAGA agenda, campaigning for election deniers, and then trying to distance himself from Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow an election.

Pence’s rebrand effort is going so badly that even other Republicans are calling him on naked political ambition. Try as he might to distance himself from his old boss, the truth is that Pence stood next to Donald Trump for four years as his loyal MAGA footsoldier.

POLITICO Magazine: “That’s the issue with Mike Pence, and that’s why he makes people so angry because he gets out there and half says the right thing, and then he cowers…” Olivia Troye, his former national security adviser, told me. “It’s because of his political ambition.”

And Pence is only trying to rewrite history two years down the line now that he has a book to sell and is eyeing a 2024 campaign. 

POLITICO Magazine: “And in the book, even [Pence’s] criticism sounds like forgiveness. He writes about how Trump had appeared chastened and regretful several days after the Capitol siege. It’s almost as if Pence is trying to reconcile his warring emotions, as if he’s trying to make peace with Trump despite Trump’s reckless treatment of him.”

Washington Post: “And that’s what makes Pence’s slowly accreting condemnation of Trump so hard to watch: It’s the person in the bad relationship only slowly being able to verbalize what to everyone else has been so obvious for so long. And only when he has a book to sell.”

Lest we forget, Pence has repeatedly bragged about his record as Trump’s MAGA wingman — including the fact that the “greatest accomplishment” of the Trump-Pence administration was helping install the three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. 

Mike Pence: “Of course, to me the greatest accomplishment [of the Trump-Pence administration] was three Supreme Court justices.”