White House press secretary Jen Psaki chided former President Donald Trump on Monday after he criticized former Vice President Mike Pence over the weekend for not trying to overturn the 2020 general election results.
“In terms of the former president, his actions represented a unique, existential threat to our democracy, as the president has said many times,” Psaki said when pressed on the topic during Monday’s White House press briefing. “His remarks this weekend — he defended the actions of his supporters who stormed the Capitol and brutally attacked the law enforcement officers protecting it. I think it’s important to shout that out and call that out.”
TRUMP SHOUTS AT PENCE: ‘HE COULD HAVE OVERTURNED THE ELECTION’
She noted that Trump, in a statement, “even attacked his own vice president for not, in his words, having overturned the election.”
“It’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office,” Psaki concluded. “It’s telling that even some of his closest allies have rejected those remarks as inappropriate in the days since.”
Trump’s statement was responding to a number of efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act, which former Trump administration official Peter Navarro has claimed was the mechanism Trump believed gave Pence power to decertify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. Despite members of both parties endorsing the reform efforts, the White House has repeatedly said those bills are not suitable replacements for either the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or the Freedom to Vote Act.
“It is not a replacement,” Psaki added of the reform on Monday. “We’ve been open to and a part of conversations about the Electoral Count Act. We’ve never been opposed to it. We just don’t want it to be a replacement.”
Trump is considering a 2024 presidential bid, which would most likely set up a rematch with Biden.
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You can watch Monday’s briefing below.
