Donald Trump never gave a direct order to hang Mike Pence. In fact, Trump didn't even come up with the specific idea of hanging, but when the insurrectionist mob he sent to the Capitol developed this idea on their own, he was only to happy to roll with it. As Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said during the first night of hearings, Trump responded to the chants of "hang Mike Pence" by saying the rioters "had the right idea" and that Pence "deserves it."
The "hang Mike Pence" moment became the centerpiece of Thursday's hearing of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot. The third televised probe focused on the pressure campaign Trump waged against his own vice president to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The committee revealed that, once Trump realized how close the mob he had sent to the Capitol was to Pence, he sent out a tweet to egg them on. As video footage from the riot shows, the message was received, as insurrectionists read the tweet out loud and redoubled their efforts to find and execute the man they were falsely told could steal the election for them but wouldn't.
