The leading US House Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik on Sunday declined to commit to certifying the results of the 2024 White House race no matter the outcome, three years and a day after a mob of Donald Trump supporters staged the January 6 Capitol attack while refusing to recognize that he had lost the presidency to Joe Biden.
Stefanik – a New York representative who serves as the House’s Republican conference chairwoman – was asked by Kristen Welker of NBC’s Meet the Press whether she would “vote to certify the results of the 2024 election, no matter what they show”.
The congresswoman replied: “We will see if this is a legal and valid election.”
Stefanik went on to criticize the Colorado legal ruling that removed Trump from the state’s ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution – which bars insurrectionists from taking office – and urged the federal supreme court to unanimously overturn that decision to let voters determine the former president’s electoral fate.
Welker said: “Just to be very clear, I don’t hear you committed to certifying the election results. Will you only commit to certifying the results if former president Trump wins?”
Stefanik said: “No, it means if they are constitutional,” before expressing her claim that the 2020 presidential race “was not a fair election” despite multiple legal reviews solicited by Trump and his allies confirming that it was.
She also delivered a tirade about how the true threat to democracy was “attempting to remove … Trump from the ballot because Joe Biden knows he can’t win”.
The notable exchange between Welker and Stefanik, the fourth-highest-ranking Republican in the House, came after the latter woman played a prominent role in the recent ouster of the presidents of two Ivy League universities.
Stefanik quizzed Elizabeth Magill and Claudine Gay – respectively, the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard – about whether theoretical calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ code of conduct. Footage of the hearing quickly went viral.
Magill resigned in December. Gay, who was also targeted by allegations of academic plagiarism, stepped down on 3 January.
Asked about the presidents’ resignations on Sunday, Stefanik reiterated an oft-invoked conservative pledge to “look at DEI” – or diversity, equity and inclusion programs that are central to some universities’ operations.
Stefanik’s interview with Welker occurred one day after the third anniversary of the 6 January 2021 attack that Trump supporters aimed at Congress as legislators certified his defeat by Biden during the presidential election weeks earlier.
Nine deaths have been linked to the Capitol assault, including law enforcement suicides. More than 1,200 people have been charged with taking part in the riot, and more than 900 have either pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.
Stefanik on Sunday became irate at Welker when the host broadcast prior remarks from the congresswoman in which she denounced the Capitol attack as “absolutely unacceptable” and “anti-American”. In those earlier comments, she also advocated for Capitol attackers to be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.
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The congresswoman accused Welker of being a “typical … biased media” member and then made it a point to describe those prosecuted in connection with the Capitol attack as “hostages”.
“I have concerns about the treatment of January 6 hostages,” Stefanik said. “And I believe that we’re seeing the weaponization of the federal government … against conservatives.”
Stefanik endorsed Trump’s attempts to seek a second presidency in November 2022, before he had even formally announced his campaign.
The former president faces 91 pending criminal charges for trying to subvert the results of the 2020 election, illegally retaining government secrets after he left the White House and giving hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who has alleged having a sexual encounter with Trump during an earlier time in his marriage to Melania Trump.
Trump has also confronted civil litigation over his business practices and a rape allegation which a judge deemed to be “substantially true”.
Nonetheless, Trump maintains a substantial lead in the contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Stefanik said on Sunday: “I am proud to support President Trump.”