In a recorded interview made newly public Friday, former President Donald Trump defended his supporters who laid siege to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and in particular, those devotees who clamored to hang his second-in-command, former Vice President Mike Pence.  

It was mere seconds that separated Pence from the angry mob that stormed the complex, assaulted more than a hundred police officers, and attempted to halt the certification of the 2020 election.

And fresh off his speech that incited the insurrectionists, Trump, for 187 minutes, watched from the safety of his perch in the White House as the chaos unfolded.

Then, this March, long after being impeached for the second time, Trump sat down with reporter Jonathan Karl of ABC News for an interview at Mar-a-Lago. Without missing a beat, the former president told Karl he was not concerned about Pence’s safety during the melee as calls to hang the vice president rang out while a noose and gallows were erected for the world to see on the Capitol lawn.  

“No, I thought he was well protected, and I thought he was in good shape,” Trump told Karl on March 18. “No, because I had heard he was in very good shape. But, but, no I think—”

“Because you heard those chants—that was terrible. I mean—,” Karl interjects.

“He could have, well, the people were very angry,” Trump continued.

When Karl then proceeded to remind Trump that the mob was specifically chanting “hang Mike Pence,” the 45th president responded casually while peppering in lie after lie about the election results.

The interview was only published this week in the run-up to the release of Karl’s book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show. It comes out on Nov. 16.

Karl said Friday morning it is just a piece of the 90-minute interview he conducted with Trump.

In truth, Trump’s nonchalant abandonment of his vice president is nothing new.

On Jan. 6, just ten minutes after Pence was yanked out of the Senate chamber by security and as Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, was in the White House with Trump, Trump took to Twitter and admonished the vice president.

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Trump tweeted.

An hour or so before Trump’s irate missive just around 1 p.m., Pence publicly released a letter where he asserted he could not, under his Constitutional authority as veep “claim unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

Pence did not, however, make an effort in that letter to dissuade lawmakers from casting objections. Notably, hours later, as lawmakers were preparing to reconvene in a secured Capitol, attorney to Trump John Eastman fired off an irate message to Pence’s aide, Greg Jacob.

“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” Eastman wrote to Jacob.

A draft op-ed penned by Jacob was published in The Washington Post on Oct. 29 where Jacob condemned the use of “outside lawyers” like Eastman that “spun a web of lies and disinformation” to Trump and the public.

And all, he wrote, “for the purpose of pressuring the Vice President to betray his oath to uphold our laws and the Constitution of the United States.”

“That was a fool’s errand,” Jacob wrote.

ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, while promoting his book on the late-night television circuit this week, has also said he has seen photos taken of Pence on Jan. 6 as he was sheltering from the menace trawling the Capitol.

“He’s like, holed up in a basement,” Karl told The Late Show host Stephen Colbert.

According to Karl, Pence’s team would not allow the photos to be published. One of the images captures Pence appearing to read the tweet Trump sent out mere moments after the vice president was rescued.