Pence is said to have told Trump that he does not have the power to change the election result.

 

Pence is said to have told Trump that he does not have the power to change the election result.

 

At a rally in Dalton, Ga., on Monday night, President Trump openly pressured Vice President Mike Pence for the first time to satisfy his demand that the election results be changed to benefit him.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/05/us/loeffler-ossoff-warnock-perdue

 

Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election victory despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said.

 

Mr. Pence’s message, delivered during his weekly lunch with the president, came hours after Mr. Trump increased public pressure on the vice president to do his bidding when Congress convenes Wednesday in a joint session to ratify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win.

 

“The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning, an inaccurate assertion that mischaracterized Mr. Pence’s largely formal and constitutionally prescribed role of presiding over the House and Senate.

 

Mr. Pence does not have the unilateral power to alter the results sent by the states to Congress.

 

Mr. Trump has been trying for days to press the vice president to use his procedural role in the event as an opportunity to change the outcome of the election. It is also a moment that some of Mr. Pence’s advisers have been bracing themselves for since Mr. Trump lost the election and stepped up his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. At a rally in Georgia on Monday night, the president openly pressured Mr. Pence for the first time to satisfy his demand that the results be changed to benefit him.

 

Mr. Pence has spent the past several days in a delicate dance, seeking to convey to the president that he does not have the authority to overturn the results of the election, while also placating the president to avoid a rift that could torpedo any hopes Mr. Pence has of running in 2024 as Mr. Trump’s loyal heir.

 

Even as he sought to make clear that he does not have the power Mr. Trump seems to think he has, Mr. Pence also indicated to the president that he would keep studying the issue up until the final hours before the joint session of Congress begins at 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to the people briefed on their conversation.

 

— Maggie Haberman, Annie Karni and Michael S. Schmidt

ELECTORAL PROCESS President Trump said Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the election results in Congress. That’s not how it works.