Watch: GOP lawmaker audibly sighs when asked about Elise Stefanik's latest remarks
A Republican congressman audibly sighed at Rep. Elise Stefanik's insistence that she would have done what former vice president Mike Pence refused to do on Jan. 6, 2021.
The New York Republican, who is widely considered a leading contender for Donald Trump's running mate, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that Pence was wrong to accept electors from Pennsylvania and other states the former president lost in 2020, saying there had been "constitutional overreach," and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) paused and sighed loudly when asked Friday about his GOP colleague's remarks.
"The only reason I'm not worried is because what she say is so completely incorrect," Crenshaw told CNN's Dana Bash. "The Constitution gives you no power, you, being the vice president, gives you no power to decertify the election. It's very clear. I mean, we could pull it up on the screen and read it. Mike Pence read it, and he came to the conclusion that he has no power to decertify election. The word 'certify' is not even in there. This idea that there even is this mechanism for Congress to certify or decertify an election is just -- it's totally wrong."
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Trump had pressured his vice president to reject electors sent by states where he claimed fraud had cost him a win as part of a wide-ranging strategy to remain in office, and Crenshaw compared that to unsuccessful challenges by a few Democratic lawmakers to election results in 2016, 2004 and 2000.
"Democrats have been totally wrong about it, they've done it all the last few elections," Crenshaw said. "Republicans are wrong about it this time. It's all based on this law."
Crenshaw said he wasn't worried that a vice president Stefanik or some other loyalist would refuse to certify election results because Trump was ineligible to run for a third term.
"You'll never see that again, because if Donald Trump wins, he's not up for re-election the second time, so you won't see that scenario," he said. "If you did see that scenario, that vice president could say whatever they wanted right there at the gavel. They could say whatever they wanted, and it wouldn't matter because it's not true. The Constitution simply doesn't allow it, there's no procedure for it, even though both parties have now made it up in their heads -- and Democrats opened this door. They challenged elections, every election for the last 20 years. They opened the door, Republicans ran through it"
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