It’s not exactly a secret that a certain former president was not pleased with how Mike Pence handled his duties on Jan. 6, 2021. Indeed, Donald Trump has routinely condemned his former vice president for his role in certifying the 2020 election results, even going so far as to justify the actions of those who chanted, “Hang Mike Pence” during the attack on the Capitol.

But the Hoosier faced far less pushback during last week’s Republican presidential primary debate. During the event, no one on the stage echoed Trump’s condemnations, with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis specifically saying they didn’t have a problem how Pence handled his responsibilities.

Republican entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t address the issue during the debate, which is why I was glad to see Chuck Todd ask him about the matter on “Meet the Press.” NBC News reported:

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Sunday that he would have certified the results of the 2020 presidential election and that then-Vice President Mike Pence missed a “historic opportunity” to initiate changes on Jan 6, 2021.

Asked whether Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6, Ramaswamy probably should’ve seen it as a yes-or-no question. He instead tried to approach this in a more creative way.

“I would have done it very differently. I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed, to reunite this country in that window,” Ramaswamy said. “What I would have said is: ‘This is a moment for a true national consensus where there’s two elements of what’s required for a functioning democracy in America. One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power. When those things come into conflict, that’s an opportunity for heroism.’”

Ramaswamy added that if he’d been the vice president at the time, he would have pushed “reforms” through Congress before he certified the election.

“Here’s what I would have said: ‘We need single-day voting on Election Day, we need paper ballots, and we need government-issued ID matching the voter file.’ And if we achieve that, then we have achieved victory and we should not have any further complaint about election integrity. I would have driven it through the Senate,” he said.

“In my capacity as president of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform, then on that condition certified the election results, served it up to the president — President Trump — then to sign that into law. And on January 7th, declared the re-election campaign pursuant to a free and fair election,” he said. “I think that was a missed opportunity.”

This was every bit as strange as it seemed. Pence’s role on Jan. 6 was ceremonial: It was his job to open some envelopes. Under Ramaswamy’s vision — which, as Pence’s campaign was eager to note, has evolved over time — the sitting vice president could’ve pushed through partisan, ineffective, and unnecessary election policies. At that point, evidently, it would’ve been acceptable to certify the results — the day before launching a 2024 campaign.

Among the glaring problems with this is that the United States has a policymaking process, and this isn’t it. The vice president isn’t a legislator. Pence didn’t have the authority to write or introduce bills. What’s more, as 2021 got underway, voters had just elected a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, and Democratic policymakers had no interest in approving Republican-imposed election restrictions.

As Ramaswamy described it, Pence, in his capacity as the outgoing vice president, could’ve simply “led through” to create these election changes. I’m not at all sure what that means — and more importantly, I’m not sure Ramaswamy knows, either.

This is, of course, the same GOP entrepreneur who said during last week’s debate that the U.S. Constitution helped us win the Revolutionary War, which didn’t make any sense.

Ramaswamy has proposed requiring young American adults to pass a civics test before they’re allowed to vote. Whether the inexperienced presidential candidate could himself pass such an exam is unclear.