In 2016, there had been two objections from Democratic congresspeople to the certification of Trump electors. Those had failed, however, to attract the support of at least one senator to advance the objection to debate and a vote. But now, with a handful of senators, including Hawley and Cruz, on deck to support objecting House members, an objection could proceed. The first contested state would likely be Arizona. At that point, with the House-Senate objection jointly registered, each side of Congress would adjourn to its respective chamber to debate the issue for, by law, not more than two hours. A majority vote by each branch would be necessary to disqualify the electors—and in no imaginable scenario would that happen. (Although, if the Democrats had lost another five seats in the House, and hence their majority, and with the Republicans, with Georgia in abeyance, still holding a Senate majority, this could theoretically have turned out differently.) And yet, this process itself—counting, objecting, each chamber caucusing, then voting again, then returning for another objection and a repeat process—might extend the certification for hours, even into the next day. The possibility of more time, and a sense of the game’s never ending, somehow added to the confidence of the president and his lawyer.

Both men, egged on by hypotheticals ever nearer to fantasy and after exhausting all other options, had come to take it as an article of faith that the vice president could simply reject Biden electors in favor of Trump electors and thereby hand the election to Trump; or, falling short of that, the vice president could determine that a state legislature ought to give further consideration to possible discrepancies in the state vote and send back the questioned electors to their respective states for a reconsideration of their certification. Were any of this actually to happen, it would certainly be contested in courts that had shown no interest in supporting the president’s election challenges and in state legislatures that had also shown no appetite for this fight. But much more to the point, the vice president had again and again and again given every indication that he was having none of it and that there was no room for doubt or further discussion.

Marc Short believed that there was no way, this side of open insult and public break, to make their position clearer.

Truly, there were no variables.

Still, Trump and Giuliani continued to game how to play the vice president.