JD Vance has been accused lately of dodging the question of whether he believes Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, and on Wednesday he offered a direct "no" in his answer, reports the Washington Post. The exchange:
- Reporter: "What message do you think it sends to independent voters when you do not directly answer the question: Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?" a journalist asked Vance in Wilmington, NC.
- Vance: "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 also criticized the media for focusing on the question. "Here's the thing that I focus on—because what the media will do, they'll focus on the court cases or they'll focus on some crazy conspiracy theory," he said, per the Hill. "What I know, what verifiably I know happened is that in 2020, large technology companies censored Americans from talking about things like the Hunter Biden laptop story, and that had a major, major consequence on the election."
The issue has been in the headlines since Democratic VP candidate Tim Walz asked Vance the question during their debate, and Vance did not answer. "Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance replied, per NBC News. After the debate, Vance declined to directly answer five times in a New York Times interview. While running for reelection in 2022, Vance replied, "Yeah, I do," when asked whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen, but he has been less direct as Trump's running mate. Democrats were quick to highlight the new answer. "There we have it—JD Vance finally admitted he denies the 2020 election results," said a statement from the Kamala Harris campaign. (More JD Vance stories.)
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