Trump cannot still win simply because an alternate universe presents different electors while he litigates in this one. Only feeble stunts remain. Even the Trump DC hotel has conceded the election, freeing hotel rooms previously reserved for a Trump inaugural.
Supporters of President Trump have made similar arguments that Pence, as president of the Senate, has the power to reject Electoral College results.
However, the theory is based on a misreading of U.S. code that simply authorizes the vice president to call on states to submit their electoral votes if they do not do so by the fourth Wednesday in December,according to The Washington Post.
“I’ll make you a promise: We’re going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted, we’re going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out,” Pence said at the event Tuesday. “So — for all we’ve done, for all we have yet to do — stay in the fight.”
But in less than two weeks, it will fall to Pence to declare that fight over — and lost. A joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 will take the last step in formalizing President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, and Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, will preside over the session after four years of ceaseless efforts to demonstrate his loyalty to Trump.
[…]
Some die-hard Trump supporters are declaring that Pence will be a traitor if he does not somehow derail the proceedings. There is no evident way for him to do that even if he wanted to, but such demands ratchet up the pressure on Pence, who is unlikely to escape their wrath — or Trump’s.
“Trump would probably tell Pence, ‘Just go declare us reelected,’ ” said Joel Goldstein, a professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law. “Part of his constitutional duty is to be responsible. Just because you’re vice president doesn’t mean you get to engage in behavior that is threatening the underpinning of democratic institutions of the country.”
As Pence reads aloud the vote tallies at the joint session, several GOP lawmakers have said they will challenge the results of several Biden-won states. If a member of both the House and the Senate object, that would trigger a two-hour debate in each chamber and then a vote.
The conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports polling firm apocryphally quoted Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to suggest Vice President Mike Pence might hand the election to President Donald Trump.
The series of tweets set off fact-checks from legal experts and historians, as well as baffled mockery and anger, and the pollster later responded by pointing out the analysis, and the quote wrongly attributed to Stalin, had originally beenwrittenby right-wing game developer and blogger Alexander Macris.
How DARE people accuse someone of Stalinist leanings when they *checks notes* lead off their analysis with an approving quote of Stalin!! https://t.co/b0zQ1NeLku
⚖️NEW: VP Pence has been sued by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), Kelli Ward and other GOP mbrs in a far-fetched bid to overturn Biden's win
Plaintiffs ask Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump-appt'd fed judge in Texas, to find that Pence is authorized to pick pro-Trump electors on Jan. 6 pic.twitter.com/BumNwLm5ss
The Trump Hotel in Washington DC has conceded the election. They’ve unblocked all the rooms they had reserved for Inauguration Week, and have made them available to anyone, at a 25% discount. pic.twitter.com/6Zvb1GLrZM— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 28, 2020
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Trump is one of the rare Presidents whose job approval rating has actually dropped after losing an election — from 46% in @Gallup's last pre-election poll to 39% now.
