Sen. JD Vance, the running mate of former president Donald Trump, repeatedly declined to acknowledge in a new interview that Trump lost the 2020 election, an issue that has dogged the Ohio Republican in the closing weeks of the presidential race.
In the interview with the New York Times, Vance was given five opportunities to acknowledge that Trump did not win in 2020, according to the Times. He refused to say so, insisting that he is “focused on the future” and criticizing an “obsession here with focusing on 2020.”
The conversation with Vance was taped for “The Interview,” a Times podcast that comes out every Saturday.
As the host, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, pressed Vance on the 2020 election, he countered with his own question, asking her whether “big technology companies” censored information that could have swayed the outcome. He was referring to a decision by Twitter that temporarily blocked users from sharing a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“I’ve answered your question with another question,” Vance said at one point. “You answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.”
Trump’s refusal to admit his reelection defeat has returned to the political spotlight in recent weeks. Vance declined to say Trump lost during his Oct. 1 debate with the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz. The Minnesota governor said onstage that Vance delivered a “damning non-answer.”
The Democratic National Committee pounced Friday on the excerpt of the Times interview.
“With five more dodges, JD Vance has proven five more times that he will always put Donald Trump’s dangerous election conspiracy theories ahead of our Constitution and the rule of law,” Alex Floyd, a DNC spokesman, said in a statement.
In the Times interview, Vance also said he “would have voted against certification” in 2020, suggesting he would have joined the eight GOP senators and 139 House members who voted to object to the results in certain states. The Senate vote took place in January 2021, two years before Vance arrived in the chamber.
Vance has said before that if he were vice president after the 2020 election, he would have asked states to provide “multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.” The Constitution gives the states the power to pick their electors, and the vice president has no role in their selection.
Former vice president Mike Pence refused to bow to Trump’s pressure to block certification of his reelection loss, leading to a rupture in their relationship. Pence is not supporting Trump’s comeback campaign, and Trump said in a podcast interview released Wednesday that Pence “couldn’t cross the line of doing what was right.”
The presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris invoked Pence on Friday as it responded to Vance’s new interview.
“Donald Trump chose JD Vance to be his running mate for one reason and one reason only: He will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t and put Donald Trump over our Constitution,” Harris campaign spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
Trump remains under federal indictment for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A court filing unsealed last week provided explosive new details that portrayed Trump as indifferent while his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Harris has elevated the issue in her campaign with less than a month left in the race. She campaigned in Wisconsin last week with Liz Cheney, the former GOP congresswoman who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 attack and later helped lead a House committee that investigated it.