On Friday afternoon, former Vice President Mike Pence appeared on Fox News and gave the political world an unexpected jolt. “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years,” the Hoosier said, “and that’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”

It seemed likely that the former president would do what he does on a nearly daily basis: The Republican would throw a tantrum, complete with name-calling and online missives featuring an excessive number of exclamation points.

But in this instance, Trump showed uncharacteristic restraint. In fact, for days, he didn’t acknowledge Pence’s decision at all. That is, until yesterday afternoon. Axios reported:

“I couldn’t care less,” Trump said after voting in the Florida primary on Tuesday. “We need patriots. We need strong people in our country,” he added. “Our country is going downhill very fast … We need strong people in this country, we don’t need weak people.”

The implication, of course, is that Pence should be seen as “weak” because he didn’t help Trump overturn the 2020 election through illegal means.

The most notable problem with Trump’s professed indifference to his former vice president’s decision is that he’s already on record saying the opposite. In fact, almost immediately after Pence ended his own 2024 candidacy last fall, Trump declared at a campaign event, “[Pence] should endorse me. You know why? Because I had a great, successful presidency and he was the vice president.” The former president added at the time that he might not get such an endorsement, however, because “[p]eople in politics can be very disloyal.”

The irony was extraordinary: For four years, Pence was obsequious to the point of embarrassment, and for his troubles, Trump put his former vice president in danger on Jan. 6, defended rioters’ “hang Mike Pence” chants, blamed Pence for the violence at the Capitol, and taunted his former vice president as a “delusional” coward and bad person.

But the comments in October also made clear that Trump did, in fact, want Pence’s endorsement — and it now appears he won’t get it.

As for the larger context, the presumptive GOP nominee’s instinct to downplay the significance of Pence’s decision makes sense, at least from an electoral perspective, but Trump’s tactics won’t change the underlying facts.

The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last made a compelling case this week that Pence’s non-endorsement is among the year’s most important electoral developments.

“No vice president has ever said that his former boss is unfit to serve,” Last wrote. “It is the most devastating possible observation from the most credible source in existence. This should be part of the context of every single story about this campaign.”

I think that’s right. I also think it’s why Trump is pretending he “couldn’t care less.”