Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) declined to say whether she would vote to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election when asked Sunday, underscoring the GOP’s unwavering loyalty to former President Donald Trump, and suggesting a similar conflict that happened when Trump lost the last time could return if President Joe Biden is re-elected.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) arrives for a news conference at the Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday, ... [+]
Stefanik voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election, and when asked on “Meet The Press” if she would approve the electoral college results in 2024, she repeated the debunked theory that the results in some states were unconstitutional in the previous election.
“We’ll see if this is a legal and valid election,” Stefanik said, accusing Democrats of being “desperate to try to remove President Trump from the ballot,” referring to the ongoing legal challenges in Maine and Colorado.
Stefanik said she would certify the results “if they are constitutional” when asked again.
Stefanik was among 147 Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the electoral college results in the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6 as Trump backers descended on the Capitol. Dozens of members who opposed the certification cited the unfounded theory, devised by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), that the results in some states, such as Pennsylvania, were unconstitutional because the states changed their voting laws to adhere to pandemic restrictions. Stefanik was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump’s 2024 election bid and has continued to promote his false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
The Supreme Court announced Friday it will review the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to remove Trump from the ballot in February. Both the high court in Colorado and the Maine Secretary of State decided Trump should not be allowed on the ballot under a 14th Amendment provision that prohibits people who previously took an oath of office and engaged in an insurrection from running for elected office again. Both decisions are on hold pending the Supreme Court ruling.