Donald Trump’s potential second vice president—Ohio Senator J.D. Vance—brushed off the events of January 6 during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, and refused to definitively say whether or not he would challenge November’s election results.
While cooking up an answer for the last question of the debate, Vance dove into the hypercharged history of the attempted MAGA coup, but with his own revisionist twist.
“The governors of every state in the nation, Republicans and Democrats, certified the 2020 election results and sent a legal slate of electors to Congress for January 6,” said CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell. “Senator Vance, you have said you would not have certified the last presidential election and would have asked the states to submit alternative electors. That has been called unconstitutional and illegal. Would you again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results?”
Vance immediately attempted to deflect the question, focusing instead on inflation, housing, and groceries, before quickly addressing the actual content of O’Donnell’s question.
“Look, 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 , without making mention of any of the multiple instances in which Trump has publicly defended his supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol.
Vance opted to double down during a heated back and forth with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz moments later.
“He is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Walz said, turning to face Vance. “I would just ask that, did he lose the 2020 election?”
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded, twisting his argument into a weird tie-in about Vice President Kamala Harris and Facebook’s content moderation policies during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“That is a very damning non-answer,” Walz said.
“I don’t run Facebook,” Walz continued. “What I do know is I see a candidate out there who refused and now, again, and I’m pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate. This is not anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world. When Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage.”
“Where is the firewall if he knows he can do anything including taking an election, and his vice president’s not going to stand to it? That’s what we’re asking you, America. Will you keep your oath of office, even if the president doesn’t?” Walz said. “So, America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on who is gonna honor that democracy and who is gonna honor Donald Trump.”
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