Pence calls Trump 'wrong,' says 'I had no right to overturn the election'

• Mike Pence issued a rare public rebuke of Donald Trump on Friday.
• The former VP said Trump was "wrong" to say Pence could've overturned the 2020 election result.

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that former President Donald Trump was wrong to claim Pence could've overturned the 2020 election results on January 6 last year, decrying the notion as "un-American."

"This week, our former president said I had the right to 'overturn the election.' President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election," Pence said in a rare public rebuke of Trump during a speech at the Federalist Society.

"The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone," Pence said. "And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president."

Trump on Sunday once again falsely claimed that Pence had the authority to overturn the election results, erroneously asserting that proposed amendments to the 1887 Electoral Count Act proved the former vice president could have done so.

"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!" Trump said in a statement.

With these false assertions, Trump has effectively turned Pence into a scapegoat for his election loss.

As vice president, it was Pence's job to preside over the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6 , 2021. But this role is largely ceremonial, and essentially just involves reading aloud the certificates of electoral votes from each state. Pence did not have any constitutional or legal route to unilaterally overturn President Joe Biden's election victory.

By falsely claiming that Pence had this power, Trump essentially put a target on his own vice president's back. During the deadly January 6 insurrection, Trump supporters chanted: "Hang Mike Pence!" In an interview with ABC News' Jonathan Karl last March, Trump defended the insurrectionists over the violent chants aimed at Pence.

"Well, the people were very angry," Trump said. "It's common sense."

"How can you, if you know a vote is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?" Trump went on to say.

Trump's lies about the 2020 election, including the false notion that it was "stolen" from him, prompted the deadly January 6 insurrection. The former president and his allies made baseless claims of mass voter fraud. They filed dozens of lawsuits, but none of them were successful. Trump has still not publicly acknowledged that he was fairly defeated by Biden, well over a year since Election Day 2020.

Last Thursday, Pence told Fox News' Jesse Watters that he hasn't spoken to Trump since last year.

"You know, we talked last summer. And you know I've said many times, it was difficult, January 6 was difficult. It was a tragic day in the life of the nation," Pence said. "I know I did my duty under the constitution of the United States, but the president and I sat down in the days that followed that, we spoke about it, talked through it, we parted amicably."