january the 6th, the bombshell claims made in the book peril from woodard and costa i mentioned mentioned how former vice-president dan quail had to tell mike pence to forget about not counting the votes or undermining the process. he had no flexibility, no authority when it came to derailing the certification process as donald trump wanted him to. if dan quale is gifting you dwiz on saving democracy, you are in a very dark place, are you not? yes, and i m just we re lucky. we re lucky mike pence at the end of the day went in and did his job and certified the election results. but, you know, mike pence could have been a hero at the end of the day, not that day for just doing his job. but he could have actually walked away after that day and after january 6th and started telling americans the truth, this was all a big sham, that this is a big lie. and that s how you become a
mike pence didn t do that. a vierant mob stormed the capitol and chanted hang mike pence because of it. and when he didn t play along mike pence that is we all walked away saying, well, mike pence did his job, saved democracy. today we re learning just how close pence came to going along with the coup. a new book by the washington post bob woodward and robert costa shows pence desperately trying to find someone to tell him he could do what donald trump wanted. pence reportedly called former republican vice president dan quail asking him if he was any merit to trump s plan. quail said, again, this is according to the book. i can t independently confirm it, but according to the book quail said, mike, you have no flexibility on this, none, zero, forget it. put it away. i know. that s what i ve been trying to tell trump, pence said. but he really thinks he can. quail transported him, you don t, just stop him, he said.
power. rightright. and it turns out that dan quayle who spent as many years as vice president that mike pence spent and after four years as vice president, under a president, whatever else you want to say about george herbert walker bush, an a guy who was an arch institutionalist, someone who believed in democratic norms, and believed in the rule of law, and the stuff that everybody has long believed in in america, until quite recently under donald trump when the republican party went off the deep end. dan quayle spent work doing in the private sector, philanthropic center, reflected on what makes the american system great, which is the norms and values and structures. it turns out that mike pence after his four years in the vice president has not been left with that appreciation. what he has left with is he s a
would blow, you would never expect he would be the guy that would stand up to the ill liberal forces, and lindsey graham the guy with the political background would cave in and fill these ill liberal tendencies, dan quayle, a guy out of the spotlight, he steps up and tells mike pence, you know, sit down. shut up. do your constitutional duty. and that is it. that is all you can do. this episode really underlines the fact that we are a nation that is divided, i think it s more 70/30 than people think, maybe 65/35, and it s divided between people who still believe in constitutional norms, who still believe in western style liberal democracy, and those who are ill liberal, and will do whatever it takes to maintain
this is something that these people are still following this guy when he is so bad at respecting the constitution and the rule of law. it s true. john heilemann, i want to circle back to dan quail, a guy often maligned by elites, maligned by social media. i think what this episode shows is what anne applebaum was talking about when she wrote the brilliant piece in the atlantic, talking about how you can never really tell when democracy s back is against the wall, who s going to step forward and defend it, and she drew the example of two republicans, lindsey graham and another republican, mitt romney, you would never expect that mitt romney, a guy that had always been seen as basically having a political weather vain and going whichever way the wind