Rubio: ‘Vice Presidents Can’t Simply Decide Not to Certify an Election’

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)  said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation” that vice presidents could not decide not to certify an election,” contradicting former President Donald Trump’s statement that then-Vice President Mike Pence could have overturned the results of the 2020 election.

Partial transcript as follows:

MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to start with two extraordinary developments that threaten to further divide the Republican Party and impact our democracy. Late Friday, Republican National Committee members voted to censure Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their work on the committee investigating the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to overturn election results, saying the two were part of a quote, “Democrat led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” The former Vice President, Mike Pence, rebuked President Trump’s insistence that Pence could have rejected the Electoral College results on January 6th.

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: I had no right to overturn the election. 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. Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election.

BRENNAN: We begin with Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio. He is in Miami. Senator, we invited you to come on the show to talk about China. I want to get there, but I have to start here. Do you agree with Mike Pence?

RUBIO: Well, if President Trump runs for re-election, I believe he would defeat Joe Biden, and I don’t want Kamala Harris to have the power as vice president to overturn that election, and I don’t- that’s the same thing that I concluded back in January of 2021. You know, when that issue was raised, I looked at it, had analyzed it and came to the same conclusion that vice presidents can’t simply decide not to certify an election.

BRENNAN:  So Donald Trump was wrong?

RUBIO: Well, as I said, I just don’t think a vice president has that power because if the vice president has that power, Donald Trump would defeat Joe Biden in four years or two years, and then Kamala Harris can decide not- to overturn the election. I don’t want to wind up there.

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