OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Steve Bannon, the former campaign manager of Donald Trump, is furious at former Vice President Mike Pence after his comments about the 2020 presidential election.
He hit back against the former vice president during an episode of his “War Room” podcast on Friday hours after Pence made his speech.
“Our Founders were deeply suspicious of consolidated power in the nation’s capital and were rightly concerned with foreign interference if presidential elections were decided in the capital,” he said in a speech to The Federalist Society. “But there are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I possessed unilateral authority to reject electoral college votes. And I heard this week, President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election’. President Trump is wrong…I had no right to overturn the election.”
"President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election," said a defiant @Mike_Pence. pic.twitter.com/dfTMXCNpvQ
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 4, 2022
“The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly, there’s no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” he said.
"The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly, there’s no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president," added Pence. https://t.co/i8njHRfB2x
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 4, 2022
“Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024,” he said.
“Wow,” the host said. “That’s not what President Trump said. What President Trump said is you had the full right to revert back to the states.”
“Pence, you’re going to carry this thing, eventually, to your grave, Okay? Because it is a mark of shame, and you are a stone-cold coward,” he said.
“My head’s blowing up,” the host said, referring to Chief of Staff Marc Short and seeming to take a swipe at longtime conservative backers, the Koch family.
“I can’t take Pence and Marc Short and all these Koch guys ratting out president Trump up on Capitol Hill right now,” he said.
And former President Trump was as furious as Bannon was, if not more.
“Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible,” he said in an email from his Save America PAC on Friday night.
“Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist. That’s why the Democrats and RINOs are working feverishly together to change the very law that Mike Pence and his unwitting advisors used on January 6 to say he had no choice. The reason they want it changed is because they now say they don’t want the Vice President to have the right to ensure an honest vote,” the former president said.
“In other words, I was right and everyone knows it. If there is fraud or large scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out. The Dems and RINOs want to take that right away. A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our Country is going to hell!” he said.
This comes as the Republican National Committee made plans to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their roles on the January 6 House Select Committee.
Both representatives had, what some could call, a tantrum on Twitter just before the official vote.
“The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy,” Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said.
“I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what,” she added.
“I’ve been a member of the Republican Party long before Donald Trump entered the field,’ he said, adding that his ‘core beliefs’ have not changed,” GOP Rep. Kinzinger said.
“Rather than focus their efforts on how to help the American people, my fellow Republicans have chosen to censure to lifelong Members of their party for simply upholding their oaths of office,” he said. “They’ve allowed conspiracies and toxic tribalism hinder their ability to see clear-eyed.’
“My efforts will continue to be focused on standing up for truth and working to fight the political matrix that’s led us to this point,” he said.
