Pence Says Trump Was Wrong to Say He Could Overturn Election

(Bloomberg) -- Mike Pence rejected Donald Trump's claims that as vice president he had the power to void the 2020 election result and refuse to certify President Joe Biden's victory, breaking from his old boss as both men weigh possible White House bids in 2024.

“I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election,'” Pence said, referring to a statement Trump issued on Sunday. “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone.”

Pence, who is considered a possible presidential contender even as Trump teases a run of his own, was speaking in Orlando at the annual meeting of the Federalist Society's Florida chapters. Notably, when Pence said Trump was wrong, there was no immediate response from the crowd. The audience didn't applaud until Pence said Vice President Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election “when we beat them in 2024.”

His remarks on Friday marked Pence's strongest public rebuke yet of his former boss in defense of his actions to preside over the certification of Biden's win in the 2020 presidential election.

Earlier: RNC Calls Jan. 6 ‘Legitimate Discourse,' Censures Anti-Trump Duo

Pence oversaw a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 to count Electoral College votes, and Trump had demanded that Pence reject votes for Biden from key battleground states where Trump baselessly claimed fraud cost him a victory. But Pence said he lacked the legal and constitutional authority to do so.

Trump's demands came before his supporters stormed the Capitol and sparked a deadly riot, causing lawmakers and the vice president to flee for safety as the crowd chanted, “hang Mike Pence.”

Trump has stepped up his attacks on his former vice president in recent days, saying in statements that Pence “could have overturned the election” and that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection should probe why Pence didn't reject Electoral College votes for Biden.

But Pence said the men who drafted the Constitution were deeply suspicious of consolidating power in the nation's capital and feared foreign interference in elections, which is why the Constitution gives states the power to certify election results that Congress accepts.

“Frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” Pence said in his speech.

Pence has defended his actions on Jan. 6, saying in interviews and in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library last June about the future of the GOP that he was proud to have fulfilled his oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution -- even if it means not seeing “eye to eye” with Trump and there are political consequences.

In a statement on Friday night, Trump said “the vice president's position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist.” He went on to claim, again, that efforts by some Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to change a 19th century law governing Congress's role in certifying an election demonstrates that “I was right and everyone knows it.”

His assertion that the law gave Pence the authority to overturn the election has been disputed even by his allies on Capitol Hill.

Earlier: Trump Attack Puts New Focus on Bipartisan Election Law Effort

Trump has said he'd choose someone else as his running mate if he makes another White House run in 2024, and Trump supporters have shown their displeasure with Pence over Jan. 6. Hecklers even shouted “traitor” at the start of Pence's speech at a conservative event last June in Florida.

“Mike has been very badly hurt by what took place with respect to Jan. 6th,” Trump said at an event with Bill O'Reilly on Dec. 11. “I think he's been mortally wounded, frankly, because I see the reaction he's getting from people. They say, ‘Why didn't he just hand it back to the legislatures?”'

Undeterred, Pence has been active since leaving office on January 2021, laying the groundwork for a potential 2024 Republican presidential bid. He's started the advocacy group Advancing American Freedom and has been making policy speeches around the country -- including in New Hampshire, South Carolina and other early presidential voting states.

Pence's speech occurred just hours after the Republican National Committee, in a resolution approved at its annual meeting, declared Congress's investigation into the Jan. 6 riot to be a “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

The phrasing was part of a resolution to censure Republican U.S. representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for serving on the committee investigating the assault on the Capitol. The RNC argues that their participation hurts the GOP and its efforts to win back congressional majorities in 2022.