“I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you,” Trump said at a rally Monday night in Georgia for candidates in two Senate runoff elections.
“Of course, if he doesn’t come through, I won’t like him quite as much,” Trump added, drawing laughs. He said Pence was “going to have a lot to say about it. And you know one thing with him, you’re going to get straight shots. He’s going to call it straight.”
Trump continued to pile on Tuesday, tweeting that Pence
“has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors.” The Constitution does not grant the vice president any such power — it is up to the House and Senate to voice objections — and states’ electors were chosen in accordance with state law, not fraudulently.
Pence has nonetheless spent hours huddling with the president, staff and the Senate parliamentarian ahead of Wednesday’s proceedings. His office declined to discuss his plans, but people close to the vice president stressed his respect for institutions and said they expect him to act in accordance with the law and hew to the Constitution.
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“I think he will approach this as a constitutionalist, basically, and say, ’What’s my role in the Constitution as president of the Senate?’” said David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth and a Pence friend. “What he’ll do is allow anybody who is going to move to object to be heard, but then abide by what the majority of the Senate makes the outcome.”
In fulfilling one of the few formal responsibilities of the vice presidency, Pence also risks compromising his own political future. Pence is eyeing his own run for the White House in 2024, and
is banking on his years of loyalty to Trump — likely to be the GOP’s top kingmaker for years to come — to help him stand out in what is expected to be a crowded field.
