Stirewalt: Mike Pence ‘may be a hero’

(NewsNation) — After day one of the hearings by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, NewsNation political editor Chris Stirewalt says the narrative might benefit the former vice president.

“What I heard tonight was that there may be a hero in the story that they’re telling, and it sounds like it might be Mike Pence,” Stirewalt said Thursday evening on “NewsNation Prime.”

Stirewalt is referring to the opening testimony of Rep. Elizabeth Cheney’s (R-WY), in which she says former President Donald Trump was supportive of threats from rioters to hang the former vice president during the attack on the Capitol, saying “Mike Pence deserves it.”

Cheney, who is the top Republican on the panel, says the committee has testimony from former Trump aides that show Trump was not concerned about stated threats on Pence’s life, even as rioters entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Furthermore, Pence was proactive in directing former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark A. Milley to send the military and National Guard to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to testimony by Milley.

Pence “was very animated, very direct, very firm, and (told) Secretary Miller, ‘Get the military there, get the Guard down here, put down this situation, etc.,’” Milley told the Jan. 6 investigators.

Meanwhile, Trump sat idle, reportedly watching TV in the dining room next to the Oval Office while the riot occurred.

“You have to think about the chasm in the Republican Party and whether this is pushing Mike Pence over to the column of the Brian Kemps and the non-Trumps and the anti-Trumps,” Stirewalt said.

Watch more of his assessment above.