Donald Trump called Mike Pence a “human conveyor belt” for not going through with his 2020 election conspiracy theory to help keep him in the White House despite his defeat by Joe Biden.
The former president repeated his theory, which has been repeatedly denied by his former vice president, that Mr Pence had the right to investigate election fraud in states that he lost.
Judges in courts across the country have thrown out all of Mr Trump’s debunked claims of election fraud and constitutional experts have denied his claims about Mr Pence’s power to refuse to certify the election.
“In my opinion, Mike Pence had the absolute right to send the votes back to the legislatures. The Democrats and everybody said you don’t have the right. In other words, what I said was ‘What is he a human conveyor belt?’” he said during his Wednesday night interview with Tucker Carlson.
“You mean if he finds fraud in Pennsylvania, in Georgia, in any of these states, Arizona, he has to send them to Mitch McConnell right? ‘That’s right sir.’ Well if he finds fraud he has to ‘Yes sir.’ I said ‘So he’s a conveyor belt.’ I said I don’t agree with that.”
Carlson asked Mr Trump if he had spoken to Mr Pence recently.
“No I have not spoken to him in a long time,” he said. “I was very disappointed.”
And he added: “I think he got very bad advice, I really do. “
Mr Trump went on to claim that it did not matter who won the 2024 presidential nomination as the Democrats would “go after” them to prevent a right-wing victory.
He sat for a 46-minute interview with Carlson that ran on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to run up against the first GOP 2024 debate, which Mr Trump refused to take part in.
It aired the night before Mr Trumpo will hand himself in and be formally arrested in Fulton County on the Georgia election subversion case.
