Reporter Jane Mayer wrote that President Donald Trump joked during a meeting about gay rights that a visitor shouldn’t bother asking Vice President Mike Pence’s opinion because, Trump reportedly said, “He wants to hang them all!” | Alex Wong/Getty Images White House denies Trump joked about Pence being anti-gay The New Yorker reported that the president joked about Mike Pence's religiosity, drawing a rebuke from the White House.

The White House is hitting back at The New Yorker magazine after an explosive profile of Vice President Mike Pence, contesting an anecdote about President Donald Trump joking that Pence wanted to “hang” homosexuals as well as other details reported in the story.

Reporter Jane Mayer wrote that the president joked during a meeting about gay rights that a visitor shouldn’t bother asking Pence’s opinion because, Trump reportedly said, “He wants to hang them all!” Mayer also reported that Trump mocked Pence behind his back for his religious beliefs and asked people who met with him if Pence made them pray.


“From start to finish the article relied on fiction rather than facts,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement to POLITICO. “The president has the highest level of respect for the Vice President, and for his deeply held faith. The suggestion that he would make such outrageous remarks is offensive and untrue. The anecdote was meant to divide, not unite and is completely false.”

The New Yorker said it stands by its reporting.

“The Vice-President’s press office declined to participate in this story for months, after multiple requests for interviews, comment, and fact-checking,” a New Yorker spokesperson said in an emailed statement to POLITICO.

“We heard from the press office only after the piece had closed, late Thursday,” the statement went on. “In the course of fact-checking this piece, we talked to more than sixty people to confirm the reporting contained therein, including senior White House officials, a senior member of the Vice-President’s office, the RGA, Rep. Elijah Cummings, and multiple people who were in the room when President Trump joked that Vice-President Pence ‘wants to hang’ gay people. We stand by the story.”

A senior official in Pence’s office also took issue with a claim in the story that Pence was cozy with Indiana’s gaming industry during his time as that state’s governor and, Mayer reported, “used executive orders to quietly grant several of the gambling industry’s wishes, such as allowing riverboat casinos to expand onshore.”

The move to allow the riverboat casinos’ expansion was done by legislation, which Pence allowed to pass without his signature, according to a statement issued at the time by the governor’s office and provided to POLITICO. At the same time, he vetoed a bill that would have expanded electronic gambling in the state, his office noted.

Pence’s office put out a statement Monday criticizing the New Yorker story.

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“Articles like this are why the American people have lost so much faith in the press,” Pence’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, said in a statement. “The New Yorker piece is filled with unsubstantiated, unsourced claims that are untrue and offensive.”

Mayer’s article included a number of on-the-record quotes that could prove embarrassing for Pence.

For example, Mayer spoke with Pence’s older brother Gregory, who is himself considering a bid for Congress.

Describing Pence’s first two failed bids for a House seat, Gregory Pence told Mayer: “Mike burned a lot of bridges. … He upset a lot of his backers. It was partly because of immaturity, but he really was kind of full of shit.”

