Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance is defending his refusal to say if his 2024 running mate, Donald Trump, lost the 2020 presidential election, despite Democrat Joe Biden’s decisive victory that year.
“The media is obsessed with talking about the election of four years ago,” Vance said at a Wednesday campaign event in Auburn Hills, Michigan, after a reporter asked why he’d dodged a question on the issue at a vice presidential debate Tuesday.
“I’m focused on the election of 33 days from now because I want to throw Kamala Harris out of office and get back to common sense economic policies,” he added, referring to the incumbent vice president and Democratic presidential nominee. Vance then gestured to a harmful and false conspiracy theory about a widespread “election integrity” issue related to noncitizens voting illegally.
Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, had asked Vance at Tuesday’s debate if he believed Trump lost the 2020 election, which the former president and many of his supporters still deny.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded, before pivoting to an attack on Harris. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”
“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz replied. “I’m pretty shocked by this. He [Trump] lost the election. This is not a debate. It’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world.”
Walz then remarked on Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, refusing to go along with his boss’s effort to stay in power as Trump supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“When Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage,” Walz said.
Vance has previously questioned the 2020 election results, claiming that the vote “had a lot of problems.”