So Help Me God

by Mike Pence

Overview

The autobiography of former Vice President Mike Pence.

Loyalty is a Vice President’s first duty; but there is a greater one—to God and the Constitution.

Mike Pence spent more hours in the Oval Office than any of his predecessors. On the surface, the affable evangelical Christian from a gas-station-owning family in Indiana wouldn’t seem to have much in common with a brash real estate mogul from New York. But the unlikely duo formed a tight bond. Pence was at Donald Trump’s side when he enacted historic tax relief, when he decided to take more assertive stances toward China and North Korea, and when he appointed three Supreme Court justices. But the relationship broke down after the 2020 election. On January 6, 2021, as the president pressured him to overturn the election, a mob erected a gallows on Capitol Hill and its members chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” as they rampaged through the halls of Congress. The vice president refused to leave the Capitol, and once the riot was quelled, he reconvened Congress to complete the work of a peaceful transfer of power.

So Help Me God is the chronicle of the events and people who forged Mike Pence’s character and led him to that historic moment. His father, a Korean War combat veteran, was a formidable influence, but so was the Indiana history professor who inspired his devotion to the Constitution. And it was in college and law school that he embraced his Christian faith and met the love of his life, Karen—the two pillars that support him every day. You will read how his early political career was full of missteps that humbled him and how, as a talk radio host, Pence found his voice and the path that led him to Congress, the governor’s office in Indiana, and back to Washington as vice president.

This is the inside story of the Trump administration by its second highest official—what he said to the president and how he was tested. The relationship begins in Indiana, when Pence sees how Trump connects with working-class voters. After the election, the vice president comes to appreciate how Trump maintains that connection through unvarnished tweets and how his unorthodox style led to historic breakthroughs, from tax cuts to trade deals, from establishing the United States Space Force to the first new peace agreement in the Middle East in more than twenty-five years. This is the most robust defense of the Trump record of anyone who served in the administration.

But it is also about the private moments when Pence pushed back forcefully, how he navigated through the Mueller investigation, his damage control after Charlottesville, and his work on healing racial rifts after the murder of George Floyd. Pence was at the forefront when “history showed up” in the form of a devastating pandemic, and he provides a detailed account of leading the task force that circumvented bureaucracies to slow the disease in its tracks. Yes, it sometimes involved brokering peace between a president with an itchy Twitter finger and an agitated New York governor, but above all, it meant giving states and America’s eager entrepreneurs the power to come up with the solutions we needed. The result was the fastest development of life-saving vaccines in history.

In So Help Me God, Pence shows how the faith that he embraced as a young man guided his every decision. It is a faith that guided him on that historic day and that keeps him happily at peace, ready to accept the next challenge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982190330
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	111,987
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Mike Pence served as the 48th Vice President of the United States (2017–2021), 50th Governor of Indiana (2013–2017), and as a member of the US House of Representatives (2001–2013).

Table of Contents

Prelude 1

Chapter 1 Climb Your Own Mountain 5

Chapter 2 Bends in the River 19

Chapter 3 The Beautiful Brunette with the Guitar 27

Chapter 4 Reaching for Dreams, Enduring Loss 36

Chapter 5 Done Dreaming 45

Chapter 6 Time to Serve 61

Chapter 7 The War on Terror Begins 67

Chapter 8 Defending Limited Government 80

Chapter 9 Life and Liberty 88

Chapter 10 Closer to Home 102

Chapter 11 Take It Around the Block and See What It Can Do 108

Chapter 12 Doing the Right Thing the Right Way 117

Chapter 13 Lessons Learned Defending Religious Freedom 128

Chapter 14 Changing Direction 137

Chapter 15 "Mike, It's Gonna Be Great!" 143

Chapter 16 Hoosier, Hummingbird, and Harmony 154

Chapter 17 "Knock the Cover off the Ball" 164

Chapter 18 "That Doesn't Look like Second Place to Me" 172

Chapter 19 Dead Sprint 180

Chapter 20 With My Right Hand Raised 190

Chapter 21 Be Informed. Be Prepared. Be of Service. 198

Chapter 22 And So It Begins 207

Chapter 23 America First, Not America Alone 214

Chapter 24 The Hermit Kingdom 223

Chapter 25 The Summer of Russia 227

Chapter 26 New Frontiers 236

Chapter 27 Repeal and Replace 239

Chapter 28 Fire and Unexpected Fury 246

Chapter 29 Stay and Fight 253

Chapter 30 Promises Kept 260

Chapter 31 On a Foundation of Faith 270

Chapter 32 Maximum Pressure 278

Chapter 33 Heal Our Land 285

Chapter 34 Blessed 291

Chapter 35 Peace Begins with Strength 297

Chapter 36 Righteous Indignation 311

Chapter 37 Dialogue Is Good 320

Chapter 38 Go Fix This 327

Chapter 39 Changing of the Guard and Walking in the Ruins of Evil 334

Chapter 40 No Collusion, No Obstruction 340

Chapter 41 Onward and Upward 343

Chapter 42 Trade and Travel 346

Chapter 43 A Less-than-Perfect Phone Call 354

Chapter 44 A Cease-Fire and Justice Served 364

Chapter 45 History Shows Up 374

Chapter 46 Only in America 388

Chapter 47 Overcome Evil by Doing Good 406

Chapter 48 Running the Race 416

Chapter 49 Here We Go 428

Chapter 50 Standing Firm 441

Chapter 51 So Help Me God 456

Chapter 52 The Calm After the Storm 473

Epilogue 479

Acknowledgments 483

Appendix 491

Index 525

Editorial Reviews

"Every serious memoir to emerge from the last administration has revealed the existence of, in essence, two Donald Trumps. One is funny, perceptive, charming and has an instinctive rapport with ordinary people. This Trump loves his family and country and fiercely guards the interests of those close to him. The other Trump is erratic, vengeful, detached from principle, deeply narcissistic and capable of shocking acts of betrayal. Most people see one or the other, generally according to their politics, but both are the complicated reality that is Donald J. Trump. Former Vice President Mike Pence’s memoir captures both iterations of the man better than any previous book." — The Wall Street Journal

"The blunt facts of [Pence's] bravery in remaining at the Capitol and his insistence that Congress reconvene that very evening to complete its work speak for themselves... his honorable conduct during a dark and dangerous day for the nation makes for more compelling stump-speech material than most politicians can muster... Remarkable." — The Washington Post

"intimate. It does offer a truly distinctive window into the Trump phenomenon, from unlikely election winner to unwilling election loser, recounting conversations and deliberations to which he alone was privy... Pence acted so admirably on January 6. Not only did he stand up to the mafioso tactics of Trump and his henchmen... but Pence also refused to leave the Capitol that day, defying his own Secret Service detail and insisting that the work of Congress to certify the election results be completed in the face of bloodshed and death. Pence deserves the gratitude of every American for his courage and conviction in that moment." — The Atlantic

From the Publisher

2022-11-16
The former vice president reflects warmly on the president whose followers were encouraged to hang him.

Pence’s calm during the Trump years has been a source of bemusement, especially during the administration’s calamitous demise. In this bulky, oddly uncurious political memoir, Pence suggests the source of his composure is simple: frequent prayer and bottomless patience for politicking. After a relatively speedy recap of his personal and political history in Indiana—born-again Christian, conservative radio host, congressman, governor—he remembers greeting the prospect of serving under Trump with enthusiasm. He “was giving voice to the desperation and frustration caused by decades of government mismanagement,” he writes. Recounting how the Trump-Pence ticket won the White House in 2016, he recalls Trump as a fundamentally hardworking president, albeit one who often shot from the hip. Yet Pence finds Trump’s impulsivity an asset, setting contentious foreign leaders and Democrats off-balance. Soon they settled into good cop–bad cop roles; he was “the gentler voice,” while “it was Trump’s job to bring the thunder.” Throughout, Pence rationalizes and forgives all sorts of thundering. Sniping at John McCain? McCain never really took the time to understand him! Revolving-door staffers? He’s running government like a business! That phone call with Ukraine’s president? Overblown! Downplaying the threat Covid-19 presented in early 2020? Evidence, somehow, of “the leadership that President Trump showed in the early, harrowing days of the pandemic.” But for a second-in-command to such a disruptive figure, Pence dwells little on Trump’s motivations, which makes the story’s climax—Trump’s 2020 election denials and the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection—impossible for him to reconcile. How could such a selfless patriot fall under the sway of bad lawyers and conspiracy theorists? God only knows. Chalk it up to Pence's forgiving nature. In the lengthy acknowledgments he thanks seemingly everybody he’s known personally or politically; but one name’s missing.

Disingenuous when not willfully oblivious.

Kirkus Reviews