Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday offered his most forceful rebuke of Donald Trump, saying that Trump is “wrong” that Pence had the legal authority to change the results of the 2020 election and that the Republican Party must accept the outcome and look toward the future.
Speaking to a gathering of conservatives near Orlando, Florida, the former vice president said he understands “the disappointment so many feel about the last election” but repudiated Trump’s false claims that Pence could reject Electoral College results and alter the outcome last year.
“President Trump is wrong,” said Pence, in his remarks before the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization. “I had no right to overturn the election.”
The comments marked the strongest rejection of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election by his former vice president. Pence refused to give in to Trump’s pressure campaign Jan. 6 to change the results and has remained relatively quiet about that decision since leaving office. He had largely declined to directly attack Trump or assign him any blame for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol. In public appearances last year, Pence defended his role in resisting Trump but did not go further than saying the two men will never “see eye to eye about that day.”
But tensions have been rising in recent days between the two men. As Pence positions himself for a possible presidential bid in 2024, Trump has pushed more intensely a false narrative...
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