Mike Pence has shut down Donald Trump's fresh claim that he could have overturned the 2020 presidential election results.
While speaking at a Federalist Society event in Florida on Friday, Pence responded to a recent statement from the former president, in which Trump pointed to recent efforts in Congress to strengthen the Electoral Count Act as evidence that the former vice president could have acted unilaterally in Congress on January 6, 2021.
As reported by CNN, Trump said on Sunday: "Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!"
However, Pence has now shot down Trump's claim, saying: "I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong."
"The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president," the former VP said.
Pence continued: "There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress that I possess unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes."
"I had no right to change the outcome of our election. Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024," he added.
In a statement shared to Twitter by Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington on Friday evening, the former president has responded to Pence's comments, saying:
"If the Vice President had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?"
Pence has repeatedly referred to the events of January 6 as "a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol," and during a conservative policy conference in June, he said of Trump: "I don’t know if we’ll ever see eye to eye on that day."
On the morning of January 6, 2021, Pence also told Congress: "It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not."
Per CNN, Pence said back in November that he looked to founding father James Madison and the Bible while certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
While speaking at an event at the University of Iowa, he cited the Bible, saying: "Psalm 15 says he who keeps his oath even when it hurts."