After months of dodging the query, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance lastly got here out and mentioned it: He believes the confirmed lie that Donald Trump received the 2020 election. And whereas it’s simple to ridicule Vance for lastly falling in step with the determined GOP nominee, his willingness to do Trump’s bidding isn’t any laughing matter.
Vance’s admission got here throughout a marketing campaign occasion in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, after a reporter requested the Ohio senator what message it sends to impartial voters when he repeatedly refuses to reply questions on whether or not he believes Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and that Trump was the rightful winner.
“I’ve answered this question directly a million times,” Vance replied. “No, I think there are serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use.”
Vance for weeks has been dancing across the query of who he believes received the final election.
Over the weekend, he repeatedly dodged the query from a New York Occasions reporter about whether or not he thought Trump received in 2020.
“I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election, but we’re focused on the future,” Vance instructed the Occasions reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “I think there’s an obsession here with focusing on 2020. I’m much more worried about what happened after 2020.”
Vance gave an identical reply throughout the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate. When his opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, requested Vance if he believes Trump misplaced the 2020 election, the response was downright evasive.
“Tim, I’m focused on the future,” Vance mentioned. “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their minds in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation?”
Walz’s response was one of many stand-out moments of the evening when he replied that Vance simply gave a “damning nonanswer.
In fact, Trump didn’t win the 2020 election.
Regardless of submitting dozens of since-failed authorized challenges, Trump and his allies offered no proof of the form of widespread fraud that might have modified the result of the election. And an exhaustive investigation by The Related Press in 2021 discovered fewer than 425 instances of fraud out of greater than 25.5 million votes analyzed. Lots of these fraudulent votes weren’t even counted, as they have been recognized earlier than they have been added to closing vote tallies, the AP reported on the time.
Nevertheless, it ought to come as no shock that Vance is prepared to say the election was stolen.
The entire cause he’s Trump’s operating mate in 2024 is as a result of Trump dumped former Vice President Mike Pence from the GOP ticket after Pence refused to go together with an effort to steal the election by refusing to certify the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has since been indicted for that plot, and faces 4 felony counts for conspiracy to defraud america, conspiracy to impede an official continuing, obstruction of and try to impede an official continuing, and conspiracy in opposition to rights.
In contrast to Pence, Vance has mentioned he would have gone together with Trump’s scheme and refused to certify now-President Joe Biden’s win.
“I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we had,” Vance mentioned in September—the precise state of affairs Trump and his allies have been hoping for again in January 2021.
That ought to put a chill down the spines of Individuals, as Vance is just not solely on the Republican ticket however a sitting U.S. senator who may very well be a part of one other “stop the steal” effort by objecting to the 2024 outcomes if Vice President Kamala Harris wins on Nov. 5.
What’s extra, if Trump and Vance do win in 2024, Vance would oversee the certification of the 2028 election and be able to dam certification of a Democratic victory.
Harris’ marketing campaign slammed Vance for his 2020 election denialism.
“There we have it—JD Vance finally admitted he denies the 2020 election results,” Harris marketing campaign spokesperson Matt Corridoni mentioned in a press release. “As Governor Walz said on the debate stage weeks ago, Donald Trump selected Vance for this exact reason — he knows Vance will be a loyal soldier in Trump’s pursuit for absolute, unchecked, limitless power.”
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