Vivek Ramaswamy made quite the splash on NBC Sunday when he told Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” that he would have overturned the results of the 2020 election if he had been in then-Vice President Mike Pence’s spot. The entrepreneur and author running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination explained, “I would have done it very differently. I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed to reunite this country in that window.
“What I would have said is, ‘This is a moment for a true national consensus’ where there’s two elements of what’s required for a functioning democracy in America,” he continued.
Ramaswamy identified those “elements” as the ability to hold secure elections and to ensure a smooth transfer of power. When asked by Todd if he would have been against certifying the election results, Ramaswamy answered in the affirmative.
He said, “In my capacity as president of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform, then, on that condition, certified the election results, served it up to President Trump then, to sign that into law, and on January 7th, declared the reelection campaign pursuant to a free and fair election. I think that was a missed opportunity.”
Pence himself has declared that he didn’t have the power to overturn the results even if he had wanted to. As he told CNN’s Dana Bash earlier this month while speaking on the topic, “Well, Dana, President Trump was wrong then and he’s wrong now. I had no right to overturn the election.”
You can watch Chuck Todd’s full “Meet the Press” interview with Vivek Ramaswamy above.
