House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., on Sunday declined to commit to certifying the 2024 election results.
During an in-studio appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," host Kristen Welker asked Stefanik if she would vote to certify the 2024 results "no matter what they show."
"Well, I voted not to certify the state of Pennsylvania because, as we saw in Pennsylvania and other states across the country, that there was unconstitutional acts circumventing the state legislature and unilaterally changing election law," Stefanik said, referencing how she responded to the 2020 election.
"What about 2024?" Welker pressed.
"We will see if this is a legal and valid election," Stefanik responded, referencing efforts in Colorado and Maine to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot over the Jan. 6 riot. "What we're seeing so far is that Democrats are so desperate, they're trying to remove President Trump from the ballot. That is a suppression of the American people. And the Supreme Court is taking that case up in February. That should be a 9 to 0 to allow President Trump to appear on the ballot, because that's the American people's decision to make this November."
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Interjecting, Welker said, "To be very clear, I don't hear you committed to certifying the election results – will you only commit to certify the results if former President Trump wins?"
"No. It means if they are constitutional," Stefanik said. "What we saw in 2020 was unconstitutional circumventing of the Constitution, not going through state legislatures when it comes to changing election law. And we're seeing this in my home state of New York, Kristen, we are seeing Democrats try to steal the election and illegally gerrymander congressional districts that we fairly won and are fair line. So I see this at a very local level, as well as the unconstitutional overreach we saw at the national level in 2020."
Attempting to shift topics, Welker tried to conclude that Trump’s legal teams took their election concerns to court more than 60 times and lost, two independent firms hired to investigate election fraud allegations "came up short," and the federal agency responsible for overseeing election security, CISA, said "the 2020 election was the most secure in America history."
"Let me make a final point," Stefanik added, as the NBC host sought to change topics.
"I think it's important because the American people understand that it was not a fair election," Stefanik said. "We had unconstitutional overreach. And that was why I objected to certain states when it came to my constitutional responsibility. As a member of Congress, I'm going to always stand up for the Constitution and make sure that we have strong election integrity. And the real threat to democracy is Joe Biden and Democrats who are attempting to remove President Trump from the ballot because Joe Biden knows he can't win at the ballot box."
Stefanik had also pushed back on Welker's claim of "no coordination" with Joe Biden and the Department of Justice regarding the prosecutions against Trump.
"We just saw Hunter Biden defy a congressional subpoena and the White House admitting it was in coordination with Joe Biden the morning of. That is coordination. And I believe that Joe Biden will be found to be the most corrupt president in our nation's history," she said.
Welker had earlier pressed Stefanik, "Do you still think it was a tragic day? Do you think that the people who stormed the Capitol should be held responsible to the full extent of it?"
"I have concerns about the treatment of January 6th hostages. I have concerns. We have a role in Congress of oversight over our treatment of prisoners," Stefanik said. "And I believe that we're seeing the weaponization of the federal government against not just President Trump, but we're seeing it against conservatives. We're seeing it against Catholics. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so proud to serve on the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Government, because the American people want answers, they want transparency, and they understand that."
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"As you look across this country, there seems to be two sets of rules. If your last name is Clinton or it's Biden, you get to live by a different set of rules than if you're an everyday, patriotic American," she said. "If you go back and play the full speech I gave on the House floor, I condemn the violence, just like I condemn the violence of the BLM riots," Stefanik continued, after ripping NBC and "the biased media" for only playing a small except of her House floor speech made in January 2021 after the Capitol riot.
"But I also, importantly, stood for election integrity and security of our elections, which, if we don't have that, we do not have a democracy," she said. "So the real threat to our democracy is these baseless witch hunt investigations and lawsuits against President Trump, whether it's Tish James or whether we see in the D.C. Circuit Court. And that is undemocratic, and it's shredding our Constitution. And you know who agrees with me, Kristen? The American people. That's why President Trump is winning in poll after poll against Joe Biden."
Her remarks echoed former President Trump’s speech in Iowa calling for President Biden to release the "J6 hostages," adding that those prisoners "suffered enough."
"You know what they oughta do, they oughta release the J6th hostages. I call them hostages. Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages," Trump said on Saturday, garnering applause. "Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release ‘em, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe."
In a speech ahead of the third anniversary of the Capitol riot, Biden championed how, collectively, Jan. 6 defendants have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison.
The president also said more than 1,200 people have been charged in connection to the "assault on the Capitol," and nearly 900 of them have been convicted or pleaded guilty.
"And what has Trump done? Instead of calling them ‘criminals,’ he’s called these… insurrectionists ‘patriots,’" Biden said on Friday from Pennsylvania. "They’re ‘patriots.’ And he promised to pardon them if he returns to office."
