Former vice president Mike Pence faced down an Iowa voter critical of his decision not to attempt to reject Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021 on Wednesday, urging her to “go read the Constitution.”
After a voter submitted that Donald Trump had actually won the 2020 presidential election and asked Pence if he ever second-guessed his decision on January 6, Pence said that he had done “exactly what the Constitution of the United States required” and kept his oath.
Later he delved into the issue in more detail, and with even more vehemence:
PENCE: Look, states conduct our elections. You never wanna let Washington, D.C. run elections. You certainly would never want one person in Washington, D.C. to decide who the president of the United States was going to be-
VOTER: You weren’t deciding, you were just sending it back to the states.
PENCE: Ma’am, let me explain it to you. States conduct elections, Iowa or Indiana. And after there were questions in a half a dozen or so states. We had reviews of the results, 60 different lawsuits that went to the courts. Where there’s questions, there’s two ways that they’re reviewed. Number one is you take those issues to the legal process in the state for recount, okay? Second, you take them to courts, which we did very aggressively. Now there were voting irregularities that took place, you had a half a dozen states that changed the rules in the name of Covid, but the courts upheld those changes in virtually every instance, and in every instance where they would have had any impact whatsoever.
At the end of the day when Iowa certified your results and sent them to Washington, D.C., when Indiana certified our results, the Constitution of the United States in Article II says it’s the job of the vice president to serve as the presiding officer of the joint session where you open and count the votes. Don’t take my word for it, go read the Constitution. Now really, I say this with great affection and respect: The Constitution’s very clear. My job was to oversee the session of Congress where objections could be heard, and I made sure that objections would be recognized, so we could hear whatever evidence or whatever debate there was. But the Constitution says you open and count the votes, no more no less. The Constitution affords no authority for the vice president or anyone else to reject votes or return votes to the states. Never been done before, should never be done in the future. I’m sorry ma’am, but that’s actually what the Constitution says. No vice president in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I had, and I wanna tell you, with all due respect, I said before and I said when I announced, President Trump is wrong about my authority that day and he’s still wrong. I believe it with all my heart.
Mike Pence to a voter who accused him of not following Trump’s orders on Jan. 6:
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s actually what the Constitution says…No vice president in American history ever asserted the authority that you have been convinced that I had…President Trump was… pic.twitter.com/HMUrYJyRyb
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 6, 2023
