Former Vice President Mike Pence reportedly took notes during a phone call with Trump on Jan. 6, during which Trump said he would go down in history as a “wimp”

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Alana Loftus News Reporter

22:28 ET, 26 Oct 2025Updated 22:28 ET, 26 Oct 2025

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The new book reveals unheard comments between Trump and Pence(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump reportedly told his former vice president, Mike Pence, that he would go down in history as a “wimp.”

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The claims emerged this week, almost five years after the shocking events of Jan. 6, 2021. According to a preview of Jon Karl’s new book, “Retribution,” published Sunday by ABC News, Pence’s notes from the call detail Trump trying to shame him into refusing to certify the results of the 2020 election.

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“If you do that, I made a big mistake 5 years ago,” Trump told the former vice president, according to Pence’s notes as published in the new book. Trump added, “You’ll go down as a wimp,” and told Pence, “You listen to the wrong people.”

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The Guardian reported that Pence’s notes show him saying to Trump, “It doesn’t take courage to break the law; it takes courage to uphold the law.”

The phone call came after several weeks of failed efforts to try to get Pence to withhold certification. Special Counsel Jack Smith, in his 2023 indictment of Trump, cited Pence’s notes from a meeting on Jan. 4.

“During the meeting, as reflected in the Vice President’s contemporaneous notes, the Defendant [Trump] made knowingly false claims of election fraud,” the court filings read.

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Trump and Pence’s relationship dissolved after Jan. 6(Image: Getty Images)

“The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 2 then asked the Vice President to either unilaterally reject the legitimate electors from the seven targeted states, or send the question of which slate was legitimate to the targeted states’ legislatures,” it continued.

The dissolution of the relationship between Trump and Pence is primarily attributed to Pence’s refusal to heed Trump’s demands to unilaterally overturn the 2020 election results during the congressional certification on Jan. 6, 2021.