Two weeks later, it remains the most memorable moment of the vice presidential debate. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz asked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, “Did he do that?” [Trump] lose the 2020 election?” The Republican declined to answer.
In the days that followed, the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate was confronted with the same question again and again. In both cases, Vance simply would not say whether his running mate had won or lost – and in doing so, the senator failed to acknowledge the legitimacy of the last US presidential election.
In one particularly memorable conversation, The New York Times asked Vance five times whether Trump had lost the 2020 race. Five times Vance refused to answer, justifying his reluctance in a completely absurd way.
That was last week. This week, as NBC News reported, there was a breakthrough of sorts.
In his most direct response yet about the 2020 election results since joining the Republican presidential campaign, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance appeared to say Wednesday that he does not believe Donald Trump lost the last presidential election. Answering questions from reporters after speaking at a rally in central Pennsylvania, Vance was pressed about recent appearances in which he has not directly declined to say whether or not Trump has lost his re-election bid against Joe Biden.
“I’ve answered this question directly a million times,” the Republican candidate said. “No. I think there are serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election? Not because of the words I would use.”
JD Vance on whether Trump lost in 2020: “No. I think there were serious problems in 2020. Did Donald Trump lose in 2020 too? Not in the words I would use.” pic.twitter.com/7I2CRodQLU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2024
Vance used the most needlessly clumsy wording possible – how a bestselling author came up with “not based on the words I would use” I’ll never know – perhaps hoping that the indirect word choice would make him seem less and sound like an election denier.
But that won’t work. The GOP candidate is an election denier.
The facts are unequivocal. Vance saw the results of a free and fair election; he saw the results of dozens of lawsuits; he saw Trump fail almost spectacularly four years to produce even a shred of evidence; and he saw key figures around Trump – his campaign manager, campaign data team, campaign lawyers, independent researchers, et al. – agree that the GOP’s 2020 ticket really lost, fair and square.
And it is against this backdrop that the Republican Party’s candidate for the country’s second-highest office – after two weeks of dodging simple questions – has nevertheless decided to question the legitimacy of an election result voted for by his own country’s voters decided to reject.
There is no defense for such an open rejection of democracy. Democrats have spent much of the 2024 race arguing that both members of the Republican ticket are hostile to the American political system and the rule of law. Vance has now taken new steps to prove them right.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
