Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short says President Donald Trump has banned him from the White House after the vice president announced he would certify the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election.
Short told RealClearPolitics reporter Philip Wegmann he had been denied entry back into the White House on Wednesday night because Trump is “blaming me for advice to VP.”
The president previously pressured Pence to reject Joe Biden’s electoral vote win as he presided over Wednesday’s joint session of Congress to certify the vote. But, as the Daily Caller points out, the vice president does not have the power to object to state electors’ votes.
“Mike Pence, I hope you get to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country, and if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you,” Trump said earlier on Wednesday, Fox News reports.
The president again called out Pence in a tweet that has since been taken down by Twitter as pro-Trump protesters and rioters broke into the Capitol building, postponing the certification process as lawmakers were sent into lockdown.
Pence later Wednesday broke with Trump, writing in a letter to Congress, “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
Congress ultimately certified Biden’s Electoral College win in the early hours of Thursday.
Via Newsmax