McCaul says Pence right in condemning Trump for Jan. 6

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Sunday said former Vice President Mike Pence was right to criticize former President Trump for Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, saying “history will judge everyone” for their decisions on that day.

“Vice President Pence exercised moral clarity and judgment that day,” McCaul said in an interview with CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “It was a dark day, and I think history will judge everyone by what they did that day.”

Pence said in a speech over the weekend that Jan. 6 was a “disgrace,” adding that the former president’s “reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

The comments from Pence were some of his harshest public criticism of Trump yet, and come as he weighs a possible bid to challenge Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. 

Trump waged a public pressure campaign to get Pence and other Republican lawmakers to attempt to overturn or block the certification of the 2020 election. McCaul did not vote against certification.

“(Pence) avoided a major constitutional crisis that day,” McCaul said on Sunday. “As you know, I voted for certification, that is our constitutional role. Not to overturn state-certified ballots.”

Pence during a speech on Saturday also criticized efforts to whitewash the Jan. 6 riots, after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) offered Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to thousands of hours of government tapes of the riots. Carlson used the access to spin the Capitol breach as a peaceful protest, which McCaul also pushed back against.

“All the footage is not going to be tourism at the Capitol,” McCaul said on CBS. “It’s gonna show a very dark, tragic day that I witnessed first-hand.”