Jen Psaki Rips Trump for Saying Pence Could ‘Overturn the Election’: ‘Just A Reminder Of How Unfit He Is For Office’

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tore into former President Donald Trump for his de facto admission that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, but then-Vice President Mike Pence could have “overturned” it.

Trump released a statement over the weekend in which he lashed out at Pence, and argued that the push to reform the Electoral Count Act demonstrates that “Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”

At Monday’s press briefing, PBS NewsHour Chief Washington Correspondent and MSNBC analyst Geoff Bennett asked Psaki about Biden’s view of the Electoral Count Act.

“On voting rights, what’s the President’s view on the early bipartisan talks around rewriting, reforming the Electoral Count Act?” he asked, and added that “there is perhaps new urgency, given the former President’s comments at that rally and in the statement where he appeared to admit to this scheme to overturn the election results in 2020.”

Psaki tore into Trump over the Capitol insurrection itself, as well as his more recent comments:

[I]n terms of the former President, his actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy, as the President has said many times. But, you know, 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. He even attacked his own Vice President for not, in his words, having “overturned the election.” And it’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office. And it’s telling that even some of his closest allies have rejected those remarks as inappropriate in the days since.

As it relates to the Electoral Count Act: As you noted, Jeff, in your question, I mean, it is not a replacement. And I think why we keep saying that is because we don’t want anyone to suggest, who supports it, that it’s a replacement for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or other voting rights legislation that has important components of it that would provide a basic baseline and important protections for people across the country who are trying to exercise their fundamental right.

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 for it.

Watch above via NBC News.

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