Trump responds to rare criticism from Mike Pence over attempt to overturn presidential election results

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Donald Trump has responded to criticism from his former second in command Mike Pence, who went after his old boss in his strongest criticism yet of Mr Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

“President Trump is wrong,” Mr Pence said at the Federalist Society’s annual conference in Florida on Friday. “I had no right to overturn the election”.

The former president has claimed that his then-vice president had the right to reject electoral votes from states they lost and overturn the election, something Mr Pence said is constitutionally impossible.

Mr Pence said the presidency “belongs to the American people, and the American people alone”, adding that there’s nothing “no more un-American” than Mr Trump’s idea that the vice president could “choose the American president”.

He added that the insurrection on 6 January 2021 was “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol”.

“The American people must know that we will always keep our oath to the Constitution, even when it would be politically expedient to do otherwise,” Mr Pence said, adding that under Article II Section One of the Constitution, “elections are conducted at the state level, not by the Congress”.

“The only role of Congress with respect to the Electoral College is to open and count votes submitted and certified by the states. No more, no less,” he said.

“Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” he said. “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And (Vice President) Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”

Mr Trump unleashed a torrent of criticism on Friday night aimed at Mr Pence, a possible rival in the upcoming 2024 Republican nomination battle.

“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,” Mr Trump began.

“Well, the vice president’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist,” he claimed despite a complete lack of evidence that voter fraud lost him the 2020 election.

Mr Trump added that “the Democrats and RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) are working feverishly together to change the very law that Mike Pence and his unwitting advisors used on January 6 to say he had no choice”.

“The reason they want it changed is because they now say they don’t want the vice president to have the right to ensure an honest vote. In other words, 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,” Mr Trump said.

“The Dems and RINOs want to take that right away. A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our country is going to hell!” he concluded.