On CBS's Face the Nation on May 31, 2026, former Vice President Mike Pence said there had “clearly been an effort by some to rewrite” the history of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Asked whether the Trump administration was deliberately whitewashing that day, Pence, whose name rioters chanted that day (“hang Mike Pence,” Sen. Susan Collins recalled hearing), said he had “certainly seen evidence of that” and pointed to an official White House timeline, released on the fifth anniversary, that he said “literally blamed Capitol Hill police for the riot.”
“I was offended on the anniversary of January 6 when the White House put out a timeline that literally blamed Capitol Hill police for the riot that took place that day,” Pence told anchor Margaret Brennan. He said he was “very confident” in “the judgment of history” about the Republicans and Democrats who returned that day “and we all did our duty under the Constitution,” and of the rewrite effort, “I don't expect it'll work.”
The timeline is part of a website the White House launched on January 6, 2026. According to CNN and CBS News, the site calls the riot a “peaceful march,” blames Capitol Police for “escalating tensions,” says officers' tactics turned a peaceful demonstration into chaos, and praises Trump's first-day pardons of more than 1,500 people charged in the attack. CBS noted that rioters assaulted officers with flagpoles and bear spray and that more than 150 officers were injured.
Pence also urged the administration to drop the Justice Department's $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, created through Trump's settlement of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS to pay purported victims of “weaponization” and issue “formal apologies.” Pence called the idea of a fund that could compensate people who assaulted police officers “totally unacceptable” and said, “In Washington, we don't need slush funds to settle cases” (see January 6 Capitol Attack, Trump Tweets That Pence 'Didn't Have the Courage' as a Mob Chanting 'Hang Mike Pence!' Hunts Him).
Correction (October 2, 2026): An earlier version described the White House website praising Trump's handling of January 6 as separate from the timeline Pence criticized; CNN and CBS report that the timeline is part of that website, launched on the fifth anniversary. The entry has been corrected.