A person familiar with the matter said the discussion was “completely unrelated” to the final tweet, although it has not been determined whether the January 6 congressional certification issue has surfaced. The two men went on a separate vacation route.
On Wednesday evening, as he was heading to Florida for his vacation, Trump retweeted a call from one of his Pence supporters refusing to endorse the January 6 Electoral College results – a prospect that captured his imagination even if it remained completely impossible.
Rudy Giuliani was Trump’s personal attorney with Trump on Air Force One before the president sent a tweet. Giuliani joins Trump at his holiday home in Mar-a-Lago, where the men are expected to discuss their election efforts.
Trump recently told people that Pence is not doing enough to fight for him as his presidency expires, and he recently cared about the traditional role of Pence while endorsing. As President of the Senate, Pence is presiding over the proceedings.
Sources say Trump raised the matter in recent days to the vice president and was “confused” about why Pence was unable to cancel the January 6 election results.
Pence and his White House aides tried to explain to him that his role is more formal and that he cannot turn down the Electoral College unilaterally.
Traditionally, the vice president presides over a certificate of electoral vote, although it is not a requirement. In 1969, then Vice President Hubert Humphrey had not presided over the operation since he had just lost the presidential election to Richard Nixon. Instead, he presided over the interim president of the Senate.
A source close to Pence said it was not seen as a good option for Republican Senator Chuck Grassley – the current interim president – to be there instead of Pence on January 6.
On Tuesday, Pence spoke to a group of young conservatives in Florida but did not directly address his next role. Instead, he told the public that while the White House continued to run, they would “continue the struggle until every legal vote counted” and “every illegal vote is excluded.”
“Stay tuned in the fight for the integrity of the elections. Continue to fight to defend everything we did.”
Earlier this week, Pence joined a meeting between Trump and a large group of Conservatives in the House of Representatives where they discussed long-term efforts to overturn election results in January.
The discussion focused on Trump’s unfounded claims and plots that the election was stolen from him, the participants said, and lawmakers appeared confident that there would be a band of Republicans in the House and Senate who would join the effort and push for a lengthy debate on the ground on January 6 that would To be extended to January 7th.
The Republican leading the effort, Alabama Representative Mo Brooks, said Pence attended “various parts” of the meeting.
“I think we have many senators,” Brooks said, “the question is not whether or not, but how many,” something that would challenge the desires of Republican leaders in the Senate who are eager to move forward and urge senators not to participate because By doing so, he forced them to make a politically poisonous voice against Trump.
Brooks told CNN Monday night that they would seek to contest elections in at least six states on a battlefield, saying he needed to coordinate “up to 72” five-minute speeches by Republican lawmakers that day.
“This is a big task,” he said.
This effort is doomed to failure but will create a scene that Republican leaders in the Senate want to avoid. And if a member of the House of Representatives and a Senator object to the results of six states, that would result in at least 12 hours of debate, plus time to vote for each of the motions, potentially prolonging the fighting into the next day.