“No right to overturn the election”
Ex-Vice President Pence contradicts Trump
05.02.2022, 5:00 a.m
Following his 2020 election defeat, Trump urged then-Vice President Pence to block Biden’s victory in Congress. But the Republican refuses. Now Pence distances himself more clearly than ever from his former boss during an appearance. Experts suspect calculation behind it.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence has dismissed claims by ex-President Donald Trump that he could have overturned the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election, but President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in a speech to the conservative Florida Federalist Society on Friday. “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election.”
To date, Trump has not acknowledged his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and regularly spread allegations of voter fraud. After the election, he asked Pence to block the formal confirmation of Biden’s victory in Congress. However, Pence had refused.
He had done his constitutional “duty,” Pence said on Friday. Pence had made similar statements in the past, but he had never contradicted Trump as clearly as on Friday. “Frankly, there is no more un-American idea than the idea that a single person could elect the US President,” he added.
Both Pence and Trump are considered potential presidential candidates for the 2024 election. According to observers, with his clear positioning against Trump, Pence is positioning himself for the race for the Republican Party nomination.
On January 6, as Congress was about to certify Biden’s election victory, radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. The storming of the seat of Congress with five dead caused horror around the world. Pence called the attack a “dark day in US Capitol history.”