Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday rejected former President Donald Trump's claim that he could have "overturned" the results of the 2020 election, saying, "The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone." While Pence had previously resisted calling out his former boss by name, he did not hold back in a speech to the Federalist Society in Orlando.
"I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong," Pence said.
If this sounds at all familiar, it's because the former vice president has used similar rhetoric before.
"[T]here are those in our party who believe that, in my position as presiding officer over the joint session, that I possessed the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by the states," Pence said in remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in June 2021. "But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority before the joint session of Congress.
"And the truth is," he continued, "there's almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone."
The difference between these remarks and today's speech is the specificity. In June, Pence referenced generic Republicans who've pushed a misguided idea. Today, he said, "President Trump is wrong" — and I didn't even realize Republicans were still allowed to utter those four words together. |
