Vice President Mike Pence is set to preside over the congressional proceeding certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, but doing so will come at a cost.
Pence has been forced to thread a very fine needle, maintaining his previously undisturbed and unwavering support for President Trump while following the Constitution, but it won’t be enough to save his political career, according to some Trump supporters.
If Pence does certify the results, then “he’s done,” Tammy McDonald, a Trump supporter who traveled from West Virginia to Washington, D.C., for the “Save America Rally,” told the Washington Examiner. “If he does not vote to reject these fraudulent votes in [the] six contested states, his political career is over because 73-plus million Americans won’t forget.”
She was not alone in her misunderstanding of Pence’s power during Wednesday’s joint session.
Stephen Jensen of Alabama said he wouldn’t be surprised “if Pence threw him under the bus” because he feels like many in the president’s orbit have not remained loyal to him.
“Throughout these last four years, there’s one person who’s continued to be true to who they are. That’s the president of the United States,” he said. “So, would I be surprised if Mike Pence betrayed the president? Absolutely not.”
He added that if Biden does get inaugurated on Jan. 20, he’ll no longer vote because he feels like his vote in this election had been disenfranchised. But he also indicated support for GOP Sen. Josh Hawley.
Hawley, the first-term senator from Missouri, was the first member of the Senate to announce his intention to object to the certification. That announcement was key as it takes a member of each chamber for the objection to be heard, which would trigger a two-hour debate before a subsequent vote on the matter.
“There’s one man that stood up, Josh Hawley, and the rest of them scooted on behind him. Josh Hawley is a courageous man,” Jensen added.
Hawley and Pence are not the only Republicans who are considered to have 2024 presidential aspirations to take a stand in the Electoral College certification.
Sen. Ted Cruz, who lost to Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary, is leading a group of 11 Republican senators in objecting as well.
McDonald, who traveled to the rally with her mother, said that if the president is not on the ballot in 2024, she’d like to see Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis run for the Oval Office.
Some supporters of the president say after experiencing a Trump presidency, there’s no one that can compare.
Suzi O’Callahan of Connecticut said she hopes Trump will run again in 2024, and she believes that the Republican Party could split into factions of those who stood by the president in the aftermath of the election and those who opposed him. However, she is still wishing for a Trump victory in 2020 despite all the odds against him.
“I’m just holding out hope,” O’Callahan said. “I feel the election has been stolen.”
O’Callahan said the future of the country lies in Pence’s hands.
“I don’t know,” she said, referring to whether Pence would reject the results. “I’m not going to feel good. I don’t think any of us are going to feel good if he doesn’t back the president.”
While he addressed thousands on a cold Wednesday in Washington, Trump put pressure on Pence not to allow Congress to certify Biden’s Electoral College victory.
“All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president,” he said.
Despite the president’s insistence, Pence said in a letter to Congress ahead of the joint session: “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.”
After the joint session began, Trump responded to the vice president’s letter on Twitter, saying he “didn’t have the courage.”
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify,” Trump wrote in a tweet taken down by Twitter for violating its rules. “USA demands the truth!”
