Those were words that Trump’s former vice-president used this week to prefix the announcement that he will not endorse Donald Trump for 2024. Pence made his un-endorsement on Fox News to host Martha MacCallum.

“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year… Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years and that is why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”

His announcement did come as a surprise because before he departed the 2024 primary race the most scathing criticism he could muster about Trump was, “He was wrong.”  He never made it clear whether Trump was wrong for forcing to him to obstruct the congressional vote certification or for assuming that Pence had the power to do it, which he didn’t. He also didn’t mention that Trump dispatched an unhinged mob to hang him on January 6th so he must feel pretty strongly about his political objections to a BLOATUS ’24.

Pence is only the latest in a long list of former Trump loyalists and White House minions who’ve given Trump a belated but well-deserved toss under a bus. They warned that a second Trump term would be a disaster for the US, the world, the Constitution, and for democracy itself. The list of Trump’s former “best people” who have endorsed his 2024 candidacy is shorter than the one lighting warning flares. Some of them are co-defendants as well.

It seems that the only members of his 2016 cabal who still support him are those who still have Republican skin in the game. Even Nikki Haley, who ended her campaign, and probably her political future, after Super Tuesday, refused to endorse Trump as is the tradition, especially because the RNC requires all its primary candidates to sign a loyalty oath for the party’s nominee. Instead, when asked if she was going to honor her RNC loyalty pledge she said, “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support it. And I hope he does that.”

Burn.

Pence and Haley are only the latest in a conga line of former loyal Trump apparatchiks who skunked him for 2024. CNN has kept a running list:

1. Mike Pence: “The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution. … Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”
2. His second Attorney General, Bill Barr: “Someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”
3. Secretary of Defense, James Mattis: “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”
4. Second Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper: “I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”
5. His Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, retired Gen. Mark Milley: “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
6. His first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson: “(Trump’s) understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of US history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”
7. His first Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley: “He used to be good on foreign policy and now he has started to walk it back and get weak in the knees when it comes to Ukraine. A terrible thing happened on January 6 and he called it a beautiful day.”
8. His presidential transition vice-chairman, Chris Christie: “Someone who I would argue now is just out for himself.”
9. His second National Security Adviser, HR McMaster: “We saw the absence of leadership, really anti-leadership, and what that can do to our country.”
10. His third National Security Adviser, John Bolton: “I believe (foreign leaders) think he is a laughing fool.”
11. His second Chief of Staff, John Kelly: “A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.”
12. His former acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, who resigned as US special envoy to Ireland after January 6, 2021: “I quit because I think he failed at being the president when we needed him to be that.”
13. One of his many former communications directors, Anthony Scaramucci: “He is the domestic terrorist of the 21st century.”
14. Another former Communications Director, Stephanie Grisham: “I am terrified of him running in 2024.”
15. His Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, who resigned after January 6: “When I saw what was happening on January 6 and didn’t see the president step in and do what he could have done to turn it back or slow it down or really address the situation, it was just obvious to me that I couldn’t continue.”
16. His Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, who resigned after January 6: “At a particular point the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy.“
17. His first Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer: “…the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”
18. His first Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert: “The President undermined American democracy baselessly for months. As a result, he’s culpable for this siege, and an utter disgrace.”
19. His former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen: “Donald’s an idiot.”
20. His White House lawyer, Ty Cobb: “Trump relentlessly puts forth claims that are not true.”
21. A former Director of Strategic Communications, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who is now a CNN political commentator: “We can stand by the policies, but at this point we cannot stand by the man.”
22. A top aide in charge of his outreach to African Americans, Omarosa Manigault Newman: “Donald Trump, who would attack civil rights icons and professional athletes, who would go after grieving black widows, who would say there were good people on both sides, who endorsed an accused child molester; Donald Trump, and his decisions and his behavior, was harming the country. I could no longer be a part of this madness.”
23. Former Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Matthews, who resigned after January 6: “I thought that he did do a lot of good during his four years. I think that his actions on January 6 and the lead-up to it, the way that he’s acted in the aftermath, and his continuation of pushing this lie that the election is stolen has made him wholly unfit to hold office every again.”
24. His final Chief of Staff’s aide, Cassidy Hutchinson: “I think that Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history.”

Again, these are the comments of Republican die-hards who were members of the Trump inner sanctum, the Trump Elite,the ones who actually implemented his orders while he was banging porn stars and cheating at golf. These are the people he nominated and hired for their loyalty. If nothing else, if you’re still a gullible Trumper it shows what a terrible judge of character Trump is (and you are) and how easy it is to manipulate him. It’s true even if you’re not. It’s something that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un have known for a long time.

Although it should, this list doesn’t include almost all Republicans who have resigned from the House or Senate since 2016, with the notable exception of George Santos. And that’s just this list. He’s on several others.

Historians Rank Donald Trump Worst U.S. President Again, with Biden in 14th Place