Biden says US is ‘ready no matter what happens’ as Russia escalates threat on

Donald Trump is being widely accused of “saying the quiet part loud”, when protesting that Mike Pence could have “overturned” his boss’s election defeat by Joe Biden.

Though he has appeared to admit Biden won before, Trump usually insists he won and his opponent stole the election through voter fraud – the “big lie” which animates rallies like one in Conroe, Texas, on Saturday.

At that rally, Trump promised pardons for 6 January rioters if re-elected and exhorted followers to protest against investigations of his business and political affairs in New York and Georgia.

The next day, he attempted to seize on moves by a bipartisan group of senators to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which Trump tried to use to have Pence refuse to certify Biden’s victory.

In a statement, Trump claimed “fraud and many other irregularities” in the 2020 election, which is untrue, and asked: “How come the Democrats and … Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the vice-president to change the results of the election?

“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power. He could have overturned the election!”

Pundits seized on Trump’s latest apparent blunder into the truth. Bill Kristol, a conservative writer, said: “Talk about saying the quiet part loud. Trump here admits or rather boasts [about] what he wanted Mike Pence to do.”

In Congress, Liz Cheney, one of only two Republicans on the House committee investigating Trump’s attempt to overturn the election, said: “Trump uses language he knows caused the January 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the January 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election.

“He’d do it all again if given the chance.”