What exactly did Donald Trump say about Mike Pence in his January 6 2021 speech?

1. What Trump said aloud at the “Save America” rally

During the roughly 20‑minute address at the Ellipse, Trump repeated the demand that Pence take unilateral action during the congressional certification, telling the crowd that if Pence “send[s] them back to the States, AND WE WIN,” and framing Pence’s decision as a test of whether he would “enter history as a truly great and courageous leader” — language that was added into the speech draft shortly before Trump spoke ^{[1] [2]}. Contemporary reporting and the Select Committee’s review of teleprompter drafts show those Pence‑directed lines were present in the speech text and were aimed squarely at pressuring the vice president to reject electors ^[2].

2. Broader public pressure that day: tweets and personal appeals

The Ellipse speech was one element in a larger campaign that day in which Trump also used tweets and private calls to amplify the same demand: he tweeted that “States want to correct their votes … All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN,” and made calls asserting Pence had the power to act—messages repeated to supporters at the rally and across social platforms ^{[1] [3]}. Reporting and later fact‑checks emphasize that the plea in public and private was not a request to “pause” but an urging that Pence interpose himself in a way many legal advisers and Pence himself said he did not have authority to do ^[3].

3. Drafting, timing and rhetorical escalation toward Pence

The Select Committee and contemporaneous documents show the specific Pence lines were reinserted or edited in the teleprompter script within roughly half an hour of the scheduled speech time, signaling a last‑minute decision to single Pence out in the address ^[2]. That timing, and later testimony about Trump’s phone call with Pence, have been cited by investigators as evidence that pressuring the vice president was an active and central aim of the day’s messaging rather than a stray sentence in a long speech ^{[2] [3]}.

4. What the speech did not say (and the surrounding evidence reporters emphasize)

The speech itself did not include some of the later‑reported verbal attacks attributed to Trump in private conversations—those allegedly occurred on phone calls and in the White House, where aides and Pence’s notes record phrases such as “you’ll go down as a wimp” and other insults, claims drawn from Pence’s notes and witness testimony rather than the Ellipse remarks ^{[4] [5]}. Investigative reporting and committee findings stress the difference between the public rally pleas and the separate private berating and later tweets that together formed a sustained campaign of pressure on Pence ^{[2] [4]}.

5. How sources interpret the effect of Trump’s words about Pence

Government investigators, multiple news outlets and Pence himself have argued that Trump’s public and private pressure on Pence helped inflame the crowd and put Pence at personal risk; the Select Committee explicitly found Trump insulted Pence after the vice president refused to obstruct certification, and contemporaneous reporting documents chants and threats against Pence during the Capitol breach ^{[2] [6]}. Other accounts note Trump later sought to shift blame onto Pence for the violence, an argument advanced in some pro‑Trump narratives and rebutted in investigative reporting ^{[7] [8]}.