A battle for the soul of the GOP is currently underway — and, surprisingly, it’s a battle between Pence vs Trump.
Politics
Yes, a war of words has boiled over and into public view between former VP Mike Pence and his old Oval Office buddy, Donald Trump. The brouhaha began more than a year ago when Trump accused Pence of failing to certify him (instead of Joe Biden) on January 6th as the real winner of the 2020 presidential election. In fact, Trump has since seized every chance he could get to throw Pence under the bus and blame him for Biden being declared the President of the United States. Trump even demanded that Congress investigate Pence for failing to name him as the rightful leader of the free world.
Now, Pence has finally had enough and is publicly speaking out, effectively setting the stage for the Pence vs Trump battle America has been waiting to see.
Constitution be damned, Trump feels Pence had the power to certify anyone he wanted (read: Trump) as the next president during the ceremonial joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.
“Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!” Trump said about Pence in a recent statement.
Too bad for Trump, but he is as wrong as 2 left shoes since Pence’s role was to simply read the official election results and not dismiss the will of the people by making his own personal choice.
“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. And I heard this week that former President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election,'” Pence said in a speech Friday before the Florida chapter of the Federalist Society.
“President Trump is wrong. … I had no right to overturn the election,” he said. “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.”
“Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024,” Pence continued.
“Under Article II Section I, elections are conducted at the state level, not by the Congress. The only role Congress has with respect to the Electoral College is to open and count votes submitted and certified by the states. No more, no less,” he said.
“Men and women, if we lose faith in the Constitution, we won’t just lose elections, we will lose our country,” Pence concluded.
End of story, right? WRONG!
Trump couldn’t dare permit Pence (and not himself) to have the last word on the subject. So, in true Pence vs Trump style, ‘The Donald’ issued a rebuttal against his former vice president late Friday night.
“Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to 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,” Trump said.
“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 concluded.
Not even a hint of substantial voter fraud was ever discovered during the 2020 presidential election and not a single federal judge sided with Trump in concluding that widespread cheating existed. So, it’s clear ‘The Donald’ is merely blowing hot air and is drunk with delusion in the belief he won an election he clearly lost.
Thankfully, Mike Pence has had enough of Trump’s lies and enough of being thrown under the bus. Thankfully, Pence vs Trump is setting the stage for the former VP to provide every stitch of info he knows to the January 6th congressional committee in their investigation of Donald Trump and his actions that led to the Capitol Hill riot.
Stay tuned…
Politico: Former President Donald Trump received bad legal advice from advisers who “were basically snake oil salesmen,” leading him to false conclusions about the power Mike Pence had to overturn the 2020 election results, the former chief of staff to the vice president, Marc Short, said Sunday. Short’s comments come just days after Pence rebuked Trump in some of his strongest remarks to date, responding to the former president’s claim that Pence “could have overturned the election.” “President Trump is wrong. … I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence said on Friday in a speech to the conservative Federalist Society. Short said the vice president at the time was never considering an attempt to overturn the results, and that he made this lack of authority clear to Trump from the beginning. Short definitively said “No,” when asked if the vice president was ever looking for a way to… Read more »