During an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” Sunday, U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik refused to commit to whether she will vote to certify the 2024 presidential election results.
Stefanik, who is considered one of the top contenders to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate in the fall, repeatedly defended Trump’s allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election and accused Democrats of conspiring against Trump’s re-election efforts.
“We will see if this is a legal and valid election,” the Saratoga Republican said. “What we’re seeing so far is that Democrats are so desperate [that] 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.”
Recent rulings in Maine and Colorado have barred Trump from appearing on the states’ primary ballots due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Stefanik’s interview also came on the weekend of the three-year anniversary of the attack.
“I have concerns about the treatment of January 6th hostages. I have concerns. We have a role in Congress of oversight over our treatments of prisoners, 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,” the Republican said. “And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so proud to serve in the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Government, because the American people want answers. They want transparency.”
The New York State Senate passed an election reform package, which included measures to expand ballot drop-off locations and established voter suppression as a criminal offense.
“What we saw in 2020 was unconstitutional circumventing of the Constitution, not going through state legislatures when it comes to changing election law,” Stefanik said Sunday. “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 lines.”
At the state Capitol in Albany on Monday, ahead of the package’s passage, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie referenced Stefanik’s interview and said the nation is currently in a “very perilous time.”
“Just yesterday, we saw a high-ranking congressional elected refuse to say whether they would certify the results of an election. We’ve had presidential nominees, leaders up and down the ballot across this country, calling into question the foundations of our republic and we must, at every instance, confront this. We must call it out,” Myrie said. “And we must stand up for democracy the same way that we’ve done for the past six years, while other folks are trying to tear down the foundations of our republic. We are perfecting our democracy, making it more open, making it more accessible to every eligible voter here in the state of New York.”
Stefanik avidly supported Trump since 2016. She has previously publicly entertained the idea of being Trump’s running mate and has said she would be honored to serve in a future Trump White House.
“I’m not going to get into the content of my conversation with President Trump. I talk to him frequently. We’ve been focused on winning. There’s so much work to do as the House Republican Conference chair, as the representative for New York’s 21st Congressional District,” Stefanik said, “and we need to make sure that President Trump is in the strongest position to win in the general election. That’s what I’ve been focused on.”