Former Vice President Mike Pence has denied claims by his former confidante Donald Trump and contradicted him more sharply than ever.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence has denied ex-President Donald Trump’s statements that he could have overturned the results of the 2020 presidential election. In a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in the IS state of Florida on Friday (February 4), Pence found clear words: “President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election, but President Trump is wrong”.
Under the US Constitution, he had no right to change the outcome of the presidential election. To date, Donald Trump has not acknowledged his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and is spreading allegations of voter fraud. After the election, he asked Pence to block the formal confirmation of Biden’s election victory in Congress. However, Pence had refused to do so.
Mike Pence on Donald Trump: “There is no more un-American idea”
In his speech on Friday, he declared that he had done his constitutional “duty”. Pence had previously made similar statements, but never contradicted Trump as clearly as he did on Friday (February 4). As he added in his speech: “Frankly, there is no more un-American idea than the idea that a single person could elect the US President”.
Mike Pence and Donald Trump are both considered possible candidates for the upcoming presidential election in 2024. With this clear positioning against Trump, according to experts, Pence is positioning himself in the race for the Republican Party nomination. Radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on the day Congress confirmed Biden’s election victory. In his speech, Pence described January 6, 2020 as “a dark day in the history of the US Capitol”. The storming of the seat of Congress killed five people and sparked international outrage.
Storming the Capitol as a “legitimate political expression”
The National Committee of the Republican Party declared the storming of the Capitol in a resolution on the same day (February 4), however, a “legitimate expression of political opinion” and punished two prominent internal party critics of Trump. A formal reprimand was issued against Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Their behavior was “destructive to the US House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic”.
After the Capitol was stormed, two Republicans, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the Illinois state representative, clearly turned their backs on Trump and voted with the Democrats for an impeachment trial against Trump, which ultimately failed. The National Committee of the Republican Party on Friday described the investigations into the impeachment process as “a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens.”
Republicans crack down on Trump critics
After the Capitol was stormed, large parts of the Republican Party turned away from Trump. However, the ex-president was able to regain his power over the party in the period that followed. Trump openly plans to run again in the 2024 presidential election. Meanwhile, Republicans are taking a hard swipe at Trump critics in their own party. (at/dpa/afp)
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