Five Questions About Pence's Rebuke of Trump on The 2020 Election

Former Vice-President Mike Pence, while speaking to the Federalist Society on Friday, offered an unprecedented public rebuke of defeated former President Trump regarding his repeated claims that he had the authority to overturn the 2020 election.

There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress that I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes. And I heard this week that former President Trump said I had the right to 'overturn the election,'. President Trump is wrong. … I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.

 While this is a welcome statement, it is nevertheless a statement which begs at least five questions.

1. Why did it take 13 months for Pence to make a statement this forceful?

2. Was this statement a one-off remark or will Pence continue to be critical of Trump where it concerns the 2020 election?

3. If it is the latter is this an opening salvo for a quixotic bid for the White House?

4. If it is the latter then will Pence support the work of the January 6th Committee?

5. Or will Pence walk back his statement after he is taunted by Tucker Carlson?

To me, the fourth question is the key. It is well worth remembering that back in October that Pence told Fox News that the media's scrutiny of the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol was a means to "demean" the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump. 

The reality is that 7 out of 10 Republican voters believe Joe Biden didn't win the election and that Pence had the authority to overturn the results. The events of January 6th are a consequence of these views held by a vast majority of Republican voters. Hours earlier, the RNC censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their work on the January 6th Committee claiming they were "persecuting" "legitimate political discourse." Hitting a police officer with a Blue Lives Matter flagpole is not legitimate political discourse. It lacks credulity if Pence says Trump wrong but then also says the January 6th Committee is wrong too. 

Until those questions are answered the jury is still out on how meaningful Mike Pence's rebuke of defeated former President Trump.