Campaign

Pence heckled by Trump supporters as ‘sell out’ after third indictment

Republican presidential candidate and former Vice President Mike Pence speaks with the media during a campaign stop on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, in Indianapolis.

Former Vice President Pence on Friday faced heckling from supporters of former President Donald Trump outside a campaign stop in Londonderry, N.H.

“Why did you sell out the people?” one heckler can be heard saying in a video taken outside of the event and shared across social media.

Other Trump supporters can also be seen in the video, with one holding a sign with Trump’s name and his infamous “Make America Great Again,” slogan. At one point, Pence responds to a heckler who asks him why he didn’t “uphold the Constitution.”

“I upheld the Constitution,” Pence appeared to retort. “Read it!”

Other media outlets reported the crowd also calling out that “there’s the sellout! There’s the traitor!” as Pence exited his vehicle.

The parking lot confrontation comes in the same week Trump was indicted and arraigned in Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Pence was a central figure in the indictment, which accused the former president of a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. through repeated false claims that the election — certified by the former vice president on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — was stolen.  

In response to Trump’s indictment in the case, Pence sharply criticized the former president for his attempts to hold on to his office in the wake of a loss to current President Biden. 

“Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” Pence wrote Monday in a statement.

On Wednesday, he doubled down on his decision to proceed with the certification, despite Trump and his allies asserting that the vice president had the right to stop it due to their “election fraud” claims.

“For my part, I want people to know that I had no right to overturn the election and that what the president maintained that day, and frankly has said over and over again over the last two and a half years, is completely false,” Pence said. “And it’s contrary to what our Constitution and the laws of this country provide.

The taunting comes as Trump and Pence both campaign for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race.