00:00I've read your book, and I enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it. Everybody has a copy of it.
00:04In the book, you point out that despite the fact that President Trump was not happy with your decision that
00:11day,
00:11you kind of developed a relationship with him after the event of that, and you talked to him quite freely
00:18after the events of the election.
00:21Can you talk about what your relationship was after you made that fateful decision?
00:31You know, I'm incredibly proud of the record of the Trump-Fence administration.
00:37I mean, we rebuild our military, we reduce taxes, roll back regulations, unleashed energy, appointed conservatives to our courts.
00:46And up until that first in 100 years pandemic, we had an economy that was roaring and abounding as never
00:53before.
00:54So, it didn't end the way I wanted it to, but I'll always cherish and be proud of having been
01:01part of that administration.
01:02And President Trump, I've said to you before, David, President Trump was not just my president, he was my friend.
01:10We forged a close working relationship over those years, we truly did.
01:15I mean, some people think we're a little bit different.
01:20I mean, he was a big city, I was a small town.
01:25You know, he was, his grandfather was an immigrant, my grandfather was an immigrant.
01:31His dad built a family business, he watched his father build and build himself a family business.
01:36But I told people, actually, if you think about it, other than a whole lot of zeros, Donald Trump and
01:41I had a lot in common.
01:44And it was a belief in the American dream, something you know an awful lot about, David.
01:49And so, yes, it was very difficult at the end.
01:52I had to carry myself as vice president in such a way that if I had an opinion that was
01:58different from the president's, I shared it with them in private.
02:02And then I respected, as vice president, the decision the president would make.
02:08But my oath and the circumstances brought about that public confrontation.
02:14But after it all settled out, the president had said that the next day everything that needed to be said,
02:22he committed to a peaceful transfer, orderly transition.
02:26He condemned the rioters at the Capitol and he said, you will pay in an address to the American people.
02:33But the president said what needed to be said, the administration was back on track, in my view, for its
02:39waning weeks.
02:40But it would be about five days before I'd be approached by a couple members of the family who asked
02:49if I would be willing to sit down with the president.
02:52And I said, well, I said, candidly, I've said everything I needed to say to him.
02:58But if he has something he'd like to say to me, I'll listen.
03:01And we sat down those five days later and talked through all of it.
03:10And really, during that time, I will tell you, and you know the president well,
03:17it comes as a surprise sometimes when people read the account of this in my first book,
03:23which is entitled So Help Me God, and it's available on Amazon.com and where all the books are.
03:31But the president was very contrite at that time.
03:33I think he was in many ways saddened by what had come about.
03:41And in the waning weeks of the administration, we talked just about every day.
03:46But I'll never forget particularly a moment.
03:48I was in that back dining room just off the Oval Office.
03:54And he seemed downcast, as he had since that sixth day of January.
04:01And I looked at him as I got up from our meeting, and I said, I said, Mr. President, I
04:08want you to know.
04:08And I said, I'm praying for you.
04:12And he looked at me, and he said, don't bother.
04:15And I got up and walked over to the door before heading back to the Oval Office in Allen.
04:21And I turned around, and I said, well, you know, Mr. President, I get the impression there's two things that
04:25we'll never agree on.
04:27And he looked up faintly and said, what's that?
04:30And I said, I get the impression we're never going to agree on my duties on January 6th.
04:37And I'm never going to stop praying for you.
04:40And I never have.
04:43We spoke from time to time, and the weeks after we left office.
04:49But when he returned to much of the rhetoric about the election and about my actions on that day,
04:58we parted ways.
05:00But I've kept that promise.
05:01I've prayed for the president.
05:03We've spoken a couple of times since then.
05:07Last year, the...
05:09Hope and prayer, like every American does, that our president is successful.
05:13Because when our president succeeds, America succeeds.
05:18Last year, you were given by the Kennedy Library their Profiles in Courage Award for your decision.
05:26And I don't know if you ever got any congratulations from the White House for getting that award.
05:33Maybe you don't remember that.
05:35But in the end...
05:37Not yet.
05:37Not yet.
05:39But let me ask you, by the standards of recent presidents, you're very, very young,
05:43and you have a long time ahead of you if you want to run for office.
05:47Have you ever thought about running for office again?
05:50In the Senate, the governorship again, president?
05:54Any interest in that?
05:57Well, honestly, you know, I would think about running for office, but I've got a health issue.
06:04Which is?
06:05Well, if I ever ran for president again, my wife would kill me.
06:11Well, and...
06:12No, no, I...
06:13And by the way, I understand you've got some news that people can hear from you.
06:16Well, I haven't been as successful as you.
06:19You've been married for how many years?
06:21We've been married 41 years.
06:23How many days have you been married?
06:25About 90 days.
06:27And...
06:28But...
06:29So...
06:30Congratulations!
06:30But 41 years.
06:31So, now, when you...
06:34Because I understand it, she didn't want to go out with you initially.
06:38Is that right?
06:40You know, we're really talking about a different book.
06:43Okay.
06:44Oh, I got it wrong?
06:46Yeah, no, I followed her out of church on a Sunday.
06:49As a freshman in law school, and she was playing in the guitar group.
06:53She was this beautiful brunette.
06:56And I walked up to her, and I said, you know, I'm really interested in playing in that guitar group.
07:03She loves to tell people the first thing I ever said to her was a lie.
07:07Right.
07:08But I didn't.
07:09I could have backed it up, because I could strum a little guitar.
07:12I could have faked it.
07:12But, um...
07:14Now, in your book, you point out the Pence Rule, which is very famous in certain circles.
07:20And, uh, probably not observed by anybody else in Washington but you.
07:25Which is, you don't have dinner with any woman unless your wife is actually at the dinner as well.
07:31Is that more or less the essence of it?
07:34Well, I think you grossly mischaracterized it.
07:37Oh, really? Okay.
07:39No, it's not about Karen being there.
07:41Okay.
07:41It's about...
07:42No, but this is...
07:43Look, when we were first married, we made a promise to each other.
07:48And I'm a big believer in keeping promises.
07:51And it was simply that as much travel as my job would take me and politics even more,
07:57I just said I made a promise to Karen that I would never dine alone with a member of the
08:02opposite sex
08:03without someone else present.
08:06And, uh, I kept that promise.
08:08And, um, uh, I must tell you, it first was published in, uh, in the Hill newspaper
08:16in my first year in Congress.
08:19And they did a profile on our family.
08:21We had moved our family of young children to Washington, D.C.
08:24And they wanted to know, how are you managing things?
08:27And this just came up carefully.
08:28It was without controversy.
08:30Well, fast forward 16 years later, and my wife was being profiled in the Washington Post.
08:37And they found this article.
08:39And they found this reference to actually what was better known as the Billy Graham Rule.
08:45That's where I drew it.
08:46It's from the example in the life of, uh, the late Reverend Billy Graham.
08:51And, um, um, uh, I'll never forget, you know, when, when I was vice president, I didn't want to be
08:58the story.
09:01Which was not hard on any given day.
09:08Okay, thank you.
09:09Uh, well, did you, did you?
09:11No, it wasn't a stretch.
09:12But, no, seriously, I'll never forget, I opened up the newspaper early in the morning, I was getting ready, I
09:18got my briefing, and I saw this story on the front page of the Washington Post, and it was raging
09:23all over the internet and social media.
09:26And so, the president and I usually spend about four hours a day in the Oval Office.
09:31And when I showed up for our, our meeting at roughly 10 in the morning, our first meeting, I was
09:35a little, didn't know how that had go.
09:38Um, and I walked in, walked into the Oval Office, president waved me in.
09:43He was surrounded by a group of people for our meeting.
09:47And, uh, the president looked up from the resident desk, and he said, you know, after everything they've said about
09:54me, now they're attacking Mike Pence for being faithful to his wife.
10:00Well, so we were okay.
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