If there was ever any doubt that Donald Trump truly believed that Mike Pence had the authority to simply overturn the results of a national presidential election because the guy he worked for didn’t win, the former president has gone and outed himself.
Over the weekend, Trump issued a statement in which he outright stated that Pence “could have overturned the Election!” And the fact that he didn’t has put Donald and his former #2 on the outs—so much so that Trump is now insisting that the January 6th committee should be investigating the former vice president instead. While the sheer inanity of it all has everyone talking, Jimmy Kimmel seemed absolutely astounded by the sudden turn of events.
On Tuesday night, Kimmel mentioned the current rift between Pence and Trump (the two reportedly have not spoken in months) and the weekend statement, but noted that “Today, he went about eight steps further with what is certainly among the top five craziest statements made by a former president of the United States. He wrote, on paper—because he’s not allowed to post on Twitter:
‘So pathetic to watch the Unselect Committee of political hacks, liars, and traitors work so feverishly to alter the Electoral College Act so that a Vice President cannot ensure the honest results of the election, when just one year ago they said that the Vice President has absolutely no right to ensure the true outcome or results of an election. In other words, they lied and the Vice President did have this right… blah, blah, blah.
If Nancy Pelosi, who is in charge of Capitol security, had taken my recommendation and substantially increased security, there would have been no ‘January 6th’ as we know it!’
But that wasn’t even the end of the inanity.
Kimmel’s favorite part of Trump’s statement came when he suggested that “the Unselect Committee” (that will never get old) should instead be investigating “why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!” In other words: Trump thinks that someone should be investigating his own vice president.
“This is like Bonnie calling for an investigation into Clyde,” Kimmel said. “And the saddest part is Mike Pence is so pathetic, he’d probably agree.”
You can watch the full clip above.