Former Vice President Mile Pence dismissed on Friday recent remarks by Donald Trump about the right to overturn the results of the latest presidential election, saying that “there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
“I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’ President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone,” he said at the annual meeting of the Federalist Society’s Florida chapters.
On Sunday, Trump once again attacked Pence in a statement, saying he “could have overturned the Election” which, in his view, was marred by “fraud and many other irregularities.”
“How come the Democrats and … Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the vice-president to change the results of the election?” he said, repeating that Pence “did have the right to change the outcome.”
“Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power. He could have overturned the election!” Trump said.
He also criticized the US House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, while at the same calling on the panel to investigate "why Nancy Pelosi did such a poor job of overseeing security and why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval."
In early January last year, Trump had urged the former vice president to impede the certification of the Electoral College results, claiming he could invalidate the votes of some electors and "throw out individual states’ election results, or return them to state legislatures for verification," as provided in the Electoral Count Act, passed in 1887.
Pence told Trump that he didn't have the authority to reject the electoral votes and on 6 January, as chairman of the joint session of Congress, certified the vote, confirming the victory of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
In the days after January 6, media began to speculate that Trump and Pence were no longer speaking to each other. Later, they reportedly did have a conversation, during which both agreed to continue working together until the end of their administration.
Pence also refused to support the invocation of the 25th Amendment, proposed by Democrat Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer a year ago, which would have transferred Trump's presidential authority to the vice president. Nevertheless, the relationship between the two has not yet improved, according to CNN.
Similar to Trump, Pence has hinted that he might run for president in 2024, but he is yet to officially confirm his election plans.