A Delicate Dance

Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did.

 
Mr. Pence does not have the unilateral power to alter the results sent by the states to Congress.

Edward B. Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State University, said, “What Trump is asking for is control of the outcome that will lead to him being declared the president. That is definitely not within Pence’s power.”

Mr. Pence has spent the past several days in a delicate dance, seeking at once to convey to the president that he does not have the authority to overturn the results of the election, while also placating the president to avoid a rift that could torpedo any hopes Mr. Pence has of running in 2024 as Mr. Trump’s loyal heir.

Mr. Trump has been cajoling Mr. Pence in public and private to find a way to use his role on Wednesday to give credence to his unfounded claims — rejected by the states and in scores of court cases and backed by no evidence — that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud.

The president has told several people privately that he would rather lose with people thinking it was stolen from him than that he simply lost, according to people familiar with his remarks.

In the days immediately after the election on Nov. 3, Mr. Trump was in shock but understood that he had lost, advisers said. But the more time that has passed, and the more that he has been enabled by a small group of people who have fed his belief that there is a mechanism to wipe away Mr. Biden’s win, the more invested in trying to reverse the outcome Mr. Trump has become.