CNN has announced a Republican Presidential Town Hall with Mike Pence in June – though the former vice president is yet to officially declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination.
Pence, 63, will appear from Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa on Wednesday, June 7th, at 9 p.m. ET, for an event moderated by Dana Bash.
The CNN press release announcing the town hall emphasizes that Pence and his former president had “a public falling out” over January 6th, and that Pence has “said the Republican Party needs to move on from Trump.”
Given this framing, the town hall is likely to take on the characteristics of a struggle session, with Bash, who has made disparaging remarks about what she terms “Trump’s 2020 election lies”, likely to press Pence to repudiate Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “rigged”.
Trump repeated these accusations at his own CNN town hall earlier this month, criticizing Pence for certifying votes from states where he regarded the results as questionable instead of sending them back their legislatures for reexamination.
“Mike Pence… says that you endangered his life on that day… do you feel that you owe him an apology?” asked that town hall’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins.
“No, because he did something wrong. He should have put the votes back to the state legislatures,” Trump said.
“I like Mike Pence very much. He’s a very fine man. He’s a very nice man. He made a mistake,” he added.
“Mike had the right to do it. They convinced him he didn’t, and it was a horrible thing for our country.”
Pence, who insists Trump “was wrong that day”, has said he will decide whether or not to make a play for the presidency “before the month of June is out.”