- In a tweet on Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump continued to incorrectly claim that Vice President Mike Pence has the power to reverse election results in the United States.
- On Wednesday, Pence is expected to chair a joint session of Congress in which the votes of the Electoral College will be read, and Pence is to announce Joe Biden as the president-elect.
- Trump apparently believes that Pence can certify him as the winner of the 2020 elections. In reality, the vice president’s role is basically ceremonial.
- The president also called the New York Times a “fake news” report that said Pence had personally told Trump that the vice president could not influence the outcome of the election.
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As Vice President Mike Pence prepares to confirm Joe Biden as the next President of the United States on Wednesday, President Donald Trump continues to insist that his second-in-command can overturn the election results and give him victory.
At dawn tweet on Wednesday, Trump wrote: “If Vice President @Mike_Pence passes us, we will win the presidency.”
“Many States wish to cancel the certification of the error they made in certifying incorrect and even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their state legislatures (which must be done),” he continued. “Mike can send it back!”
Trump’s claim that several states are trying to withdraw their certification of Biden’s victory is wrong. He appeared to be referring to a false claim, repeated by the right-wing newspaper The Gateway Pundit, that Wisconsin wanted to withdraw from certification and give Trump his electoral votes. Pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell also filed a long-term lawsuit to cancel certification of Arizona election results, which Biden also won.
The president has expressed in recent days the belief that Pence can discard election results when he chairs a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, where he is expected to hear the results of the Electoral College and then confirm Biden as president-elect.
Trump mistakenly believes that Pence will have the power during this session to throw away the results in various states of the battlefield, where Trump insisted – without evidence – that there was widespread electoral fraud.
In reality, Pence’s role is mainly ceremonial. The New York Times compared Pence’s role at the ceremony to that of an Oscar presenter, who has the power to announce the winner, but not to decide who wins.
That role put Pence at risk of angering Trump in the president’s final days in office and losing his support if Pence decides to run for president in 2024.
On Tuesday, The Times reported that Pence tried to explain to Trump over lunch that he had no real power to alter election results.
Trump later told The Times in a statement that his reporting on the discussion was “fake news”.
“He never said that,” continued the statement. “The vice president and I fully agree that the vice president has the power to act.”
What is likely to happen on Wednesday is a process of finalizing voting results in each state.
A group of Republican lawmakers vowed to challenge the results in several states during the ceremony and could force a vote.
But with Democrats in control of the House, Republicans have no real chance of meeting these challenges or changing the outcome of the election.
On Wednesday, the Democratic Party had also regained control of the Senate, according to projections by the Decision Desk HQ that Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won the Senate run-off election in Georgia.