Vice President Mike Pence is being pressed on the message that more statues would be removed if Joe Biden were elected when it is currently happening under the Trump administration.
The Washington Examiner spoke with the vice president in an interview published Friday and he was asked about when the president said “if Joe Biden is elected, they’re going to be tearing down statutes,” as the reporter said. The reporter noted that President Donald Trump “has said things could get very bad from the standpoint of public safety and mobs tearing down statues.”
Pence was then asked, “The question I have is: That’s exactly what’s happening right now, and you guys are in charge. … couldn’t some voters look around and say, ‘Not that I’m blaming you, Mr. President, but it’s happening right now. So, I don’t see what the difference is’?”
The vice president responded by noting the “difference” right now is “we have hundreds of investigations, dozens of prosecutions against people that have vandalized property and engaged in rioting, including the tearing down of statues.”
“When rioters were setting fire to one of the oldest churches in America and defacing our national monuments, Joe Biden sent out a press release. President Trump sent in the National Guard. We quelled the violence.”
He added, “The contrast is, with Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, this is a president who understands our commitment is to uphold the rule of law — law and order.”
Pence went on to point to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) remarks where she said during Thursday’s press conference, “People will do what they do,” when asked if it should be left up to the communities to take down controversial statues, as IJR reported.
In response to Pelosi’s comment, Pence said, “Well, the president of the United States takes an oath to see that the laws are faithfully executed, not to say that ‘people that break the law will do what they will do.'”
In case you missed it:
Reporter asking about Christopher Columbus statue in Baltimore: "Shouldn't that be done by a commission or the city council, not a mob in the middle of the night throwing it into a harbor?"
— The Hill (@thehill) July 9, 2020
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "People will do what they do." pic.twitter.com/mlSUDIBZRv
Additionally, Pence also noted during the Examiner’s interview that he does not believe tearing down statues is a protest.
During his speech on Friday, Trump called Biden a “puppet” of the “militant left,” before claiming Biden is part of those who want to “rip down statues and monuments to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Jesus. They want to rip down statues to Jesus.”
See Trump’s comments below:
Biden recently shared that he believes monuments, such as those for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus, belong in museums.
“The idea of bringing down all those Confederate monuments to Confederate soldiers and generals who strongly supported secession and maintaining slavery and going to war to do it, I think those statues belong in museums, they don’t belong in public places,” he said during a press conference in Delaware on June 30.