Pence on Friday said Trump was “wrong” to say Pence could overturn the 2020 Presidential Election, choosing the Federalist Society meeting in Orlando to make that argument.
On Sunday’s Face the Nation, Rubio seemed to side with Pence, according to a transcript released ahead of the broadcast.
“Well, if President Trump runs for re-election, I believe he would defeat Joe Biden, and I don’t want Kamala Harris to have the power as Vice President to overturn that election, and I don’t … that’s the same thing that I concluded back in January of 2021. You know, when that issue was raised, I looked at it, had analyzed it and came to the same conclusion that vice presidents can’t simply decide not to certify an election,” Rubio said, per the transcript of the interview.
Pressed on this point, Rubio did not say no when asked by host Margaret Brennan if “Trump was wrong.”
“I just don’t think a Vice President has that power because if the Vice President has that power, Donald Trump would defeat Joe Biden in four years or two years, and then Kamala Harris can decide not to overturn the election. I don’t want to wind up there,” Rubio contended.
Trump has argued Pence could have reversed the election, as a statement Saturday indicated.
“Mike Pence said he had no authority other than to send the votes forward to the Old Crow, Mitch McConnell. If so, why are the Dems and RINOs fighting so hard to make it impossible for a VP to do so in the future?”
“President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” Pence asserted Friday, pushing back in the wake of assertions from Trump that Pence should have chosen to “send back the votes for recertification or approval” and “could have overturned the Election!”
This article first appeared at Florida Politics.
This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2022.