Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance dodged a question at Tuesday’s debate on whether he would attempt to subvert the results of November’s election if given the chance ― just as he has said he would have done in 2020. He also refused to answer whether he believes Trump lost in 2020.
The question came up in the second half of Vance’s debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor.
“Senator Vance, you have said you would not have certified the last presidential election and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors,” CBS News moderator Norah O’Donnell said to Vance. “That’s been called unconstitutional and illegal. Would you again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results?”
Vance... didn’t answer the question. Instead he went off on multiple tangents about inflation and online censorship. When he did briefly address the question, he lied.
“What President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues, peacefully in the public square, and that’s all I’ve said and that’s all that Donald Trump has said,” Vance said of Trump’s election fraud claims that culminated in the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
That is not all that Vance has said, nor is it all that Trump has said.
Vance later added a couple of more falsehoods, claiming Trump had said that “protesters should peacefully protest on January 6” and adding that Trump “peacefully gave over power on January 20,” the day Joe Biden was inaugurated.
He also refused to answer whether Trump even lost the 2020 election.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” he said when pressed by Walz on the question.
“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz replied.
What Trump Actually Did
Trump is facing federal charges over his attempt to overthrow the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. He was recently re-indicted on those charges, and his lawyers were making new arguments in the case just hours before Tuesday’s debate.
“Despite having lost, the defendant ― who was also the incumbent president ― was determined to remain in power,” the indictment says. “So, for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election [and that] he had actually won. These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false.”
After he lost in 2020, Trump spent weeks pursuing baseless lawsuits alleging widespread election fraud, for which there was no evidence, and when those suits failed, his team cultivated fraudulent “alternative” elector slates with the goal of pressuring Congress to count these fake Trump votes in key states rather than the votes for Biden that had been certified by those states. Trump then pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to go along with the plot. Though dozens of congressional Republicans ultimately voted in support of Trump’s plan, Pence refused, and Trump’s strategy failed.
In order to apply pressure on Pence and members of Congress, Trump invited his supporters to a “wild” protest in Washington on Jan. 6, when Congress and Pence would have the opportunity to count the fraudulent electors and ultimately overturn the results for Trump. In a speech that day before sending a mob to the Capitol, Trump did in fact use the word “peacefully” ― but the overwhelming message to his supporters was that they should “fight” for him: “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The mob did fight, attacking the Capitol for several hours in a push to confront Congress as Trump sat back and watched. “When advisors urged the Defendant to issue a calming message aimed at the rioters, the Defendant refused, instead repeatedly remarking that the people at the Capitol were angry because the election had been stolen,” the indictment against Trump says. That’s far from peaceful.
Vance Has Said He Would Have Gone Along With Trump’s Plan
Vance said Tuesday that, if he’d been vice president, he would have just wanted a peaceful debate over the election results.
But in more honest moments, Vance has said he would have gone along with Trump’s plan to overturn the election.
Vance told ABC News in February: “If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.”
And he told New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in June: “Look, here’s what this would’ve looked like if you really wanted to do this. You would’ve actually tried to go to the states that had problems; you would try to marshal alternative slates of electors, like they did in the election of 1876. And then you have to actually prosecute that case; you have to make an argument to the American people.”
“Do I think that Mike Pence could have played a better role? Yes,” Vance said during a podcast taping a few days ago, repeatedly refusing to say he would have certified the Electoral College results and adding that he would have “asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors.”
The “argument” Vance is talking about is Trump’s “big lie” that the election was stolen. It simply wasn’t, as multiple investigations by scores of nonpartisan analysts and members of both parties have shown. Aside from a few isolated cases of voter fraud, which occur in every election, no widespread fraud occurred. And there was certainly no systemic fraud in 2020.
Vance has repeatedly said he would have worked with Trump and congressional Republicans to overturn the legitimate result of a democratic election. So when he said Tuesday that he wanted to “fight about those issues,” that’s the fight he’s talking about: a fight over democracy itself.