PALM BEACH, Florida — Vice President Mike Pence made an end-of-year appearance at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit to tout the accomplishments of President Trump’s first term and encourage young conservatives to “stay in the fight.”
On Tuesday, Pence concluded the conservative, nonprofit organization’s annual conference in Palm Beach, Florida, with a speech that resembled those made during the 2020 presidential campaign. His main emphasis to student activists was a fight for freedom, telling them that “the best days for the conservative movement” are “yet to come.”
“So for all we’ve done, for all we have yet to do, stay in the fight,” Pence said. “Stay in the fight in our election. Stay in the fight in Georgia’s election. Stay in the fight every day that follows.”
Attendees responded by shouting chants of “stop the steal,” but Pence said young conservatives would be a “check” against the agenda of the Democratic Party.
“Men and women of TPUSA, you stay in the fight to finish what we started. The president and I are counting on all of you. We need your voices. We need this energy. And we need your vision. We need you to stay in the fight for freedom because the fight for freedom never ends,” Pence said.
Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit organization, holds conferences throughout the year, including its Student Action Summit. It has featured top-tier speakers, including the president and vice president. This year, the conference faced capacity restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On Monday, Trump briefly called into the conservative conference and took a different tone, falsely claiming that he won the election “in a landslide.”
On Dec. 14, the Electoral College voted to make Joe Biden the next president, effectively ending Trump’s chances to overturn the results of the election. However, the Trump legal team believes it still has time to act, signaling it will continue the fight into January with unsubstantiated claims of national voter fraud. Pence spoke on Trump disputing the results of the election at the beginning of his speech, but he did not discuss specifics.
“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. “We’re going to win Georgia. We’re going to save America, and we’ll never stop fighting to make America great again.”
On Jan. 6, Congress will perform its constitutional obligation to count and certify the votes of the Electoral College, but lawmakers do have the ability to object to the votes. For that objection to be honored, it must be written by hand and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate. It is unlikely the objections may change the results in Trump’s favor. Pence will preside over the process.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his fellow Republicans in a telephone conference call not to block Biden’s win, and no GOP member on the call reportedly objected to McConnell’s request.
