Top House Republican Steve Scalise refused to say Trump lost the election 11 months after Biden won

• Louisiana GOP Rep. Steve Scalise refused to say whether he believed the 2020 election was "stolen."
• The election took place 11 months ago, and President Joe Biden has been in office for eight months.

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the number two Republican in the US House of Representatives, on Sunday refused to say that President Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 election more than 11 months after it took place.

"I've been very clear from the beginning," said Scalise, the House minority whip, during a Sunday appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "If you look at a number of states, they didn't follow their state-passed laws that govern the election for president. That is what the United States Constitution says. They don't say the states determine what the rules are. They say the state legislatures determine the rules."

Many states changed or expanded mail-in-voting options in last year's election due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and such efforts were attacked by many Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

Scalise was pressed Sunday by Fox News' Chris Wallace, who repeatedly asked Scalise if he believed President Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claims that widespread voter fraud resulted in a "stolen" election. Trump's own Attorney General William Barr said in December 2020 that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation found no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.

Still, Trump has repeated such claims as recently as Saturday.

"What I said is there are states that didn't follow their legislatively set rules," Scalise said, refusing to answer whether he believed the election was "stolen."

"That's what the United States Constitution says, and I think there are a lot of people that want us to get back to what the Constitution says we should be doing - not just with elections, but a lot of other things, too. And there are some people that want to just ignore what the Constitution says and do their own thing. You know, that's been a debate that's been going on in this country for a long time," he added.

Scalise's comments come more than 11 months after the November 3, 2020, presidential election that saw President Joe Biden defeat then-President Trump, making him one in just a handful of presidents to lose a bid for reelection.

In the months that followed Trump's defeat, the former president, his lawyers, and his allies launched numerous false and unproven claims and lawsuits in an attempt to overturn the election results. All of these attempts failed. Trump's continued attempts to undermine the election led to the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney slammed Scalise for refusing to say if he believed the election was stolen.

"Millions of Americans have been sold a fraud that the election was stolen. Republicans have a duty to tell the American people that this is not true. Perpetuating the Big Lie is an attack on the core of our constitutional republic," the Wyoming lawmaker tweeted.

In May, Cheney called on GOP lawmakers to drop Trump's baseless election claims.

"The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system," she tweeted.