Former President Donald Trump recently reiterated his belief that former Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to “overturn” the 2020 election results on Jan. 6, 2021 — a disputed assertion that Pence pushed back against in public comments on Friday.
Now Trump has fired back at his former running mate’s comments and noted that while this debate over vice presidential powers remains ongoing, “in the meantime our Country is going to hell!” according to Fox News.
Trump claims Pence had the right to “overturn” 2020 election
This recent back-and-forth was launched by way of a statement on Jan. 30 from former President Trump that called into question efforts by Congress to reform the Electoral Count Act to specifically prohibit a vice president from doing anything other than counting Electoral College votes to certify a presidential election, which implies that such extra authority already exists in the long-standing statute.
“If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans … are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?” Trump asked.
“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away,” he added. “Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”
In a follow-up statement on Feb. 1, Trump raised the issue once again and said of those who’d previously denied any such vice-presidential authorities to alter or overturn election results, “In other words, they lied, and the Vice President did have this right or, more pointedly, could have sent the votes back to various legislators for reassessment after so much fraud and irregularities were found.”
“Trump is wrong … I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence says
According to ABC News, the former Vice President disagrees with Trump’s assessment and said as much during a speech Friday to a local Florida chapter of the Federalist Society.
“There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress that I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes,” Pence said. “And I heard this week that former President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.'”
“President Trump is wrong … I had no right to overturn the election,” he added. “The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
“I was right and everyone knows it,” Trump says
The Hill reported that it didn’t take long for Trump to respond to those remarks from Pence, and the former president fired off another statement Friday night in which he said, “Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything concerning the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible.”
Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist. That’s why the Democrats and RINOs are working feverishly together to change the very law that Mike Pence and his unwitting advisors used on January 6 to say he had no choice. The reason they want it changed is because they now say they don’t want the Vice President to have the right to ensure an honest vote.
“In other words, I was right and everyone knows it. If there is fraud or large scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out,” Trump added. “The Dems and RINOs want to take that right away. A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our Country is going to hell!”
