Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

This Friday, former Vice President Mike Pence uttered four fateful words: “President Trump is wrong.” It went over about as well as you might expect. Pence went on to explain that as vice president, he “had no right to overturn the election” and that “there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any single person could choose the American president.”

According to sources obtained by the Occasionally, these words are the real reason for Mike Pence’s visit to Stanford University: to hide from the mob. According to an anonymous senior staffer, “It’s a bad situation and we’re more or less out of options. You’ve got to be careful what you say to conserva – oh I meant leftists – these days.” 

Stanford University isn’t exactly rife with Trump supporters, so it’s a good place to hide and ride out the storm. Plus, as an old white man, Pence should be able to easily blend in among the administration and faculty. “He’s packed his sleeping bag, his night light and his female proximity alarm, so he should be all set to camp out under the desks of Hoover institution fellows and whisper sweet nothings about cancel culture in their ears while this all blows over,” the staffer explained.

In one email acquired by the Occasionally, Pence himself lamented that “it’s a tough choice between being close to women besides my mother and being close to people that want to kill me, but we all have to make sacrifices for our country.”

At press time, sources report that Pence is still planning to use his Feb. 17 speaker event to lament how the American left has become a ‘cult of violent ideologues’ who ‘violently attack’ anyone who disagrees with them.