JD Vance did his best to dial back his Ivy League dorkiness, and for most of Tuesday’s 90-plus-minute CBS News vice-presidential debate, he almost came across to the millions watching at home as relatable, even borderline reasonable.
His problem came at the end of the night, when the subject that matters most to the all-important audience of one tuning in came up.
“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. Remember, he said that, on January 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully, and on January 20th, what happened? Joe Biden became the president, Donald Trump left the White House.
This was Vance, the U.S. senator from Ohio and the Republican vice-presidential nominee, after he had been asked, point-blank, by CBS News moderator Norah O’Donnell, if he would “again seek to challenge this year’s election results, even if every governor certifies the results.”
Video: JD Vance, Tim Walz spar on Jan. 6, democracy
You don’t need me to tell you that Trump didn’t say that his supporters needed to protest peacefully, but rather, told them, moments before thousands swarmed the U.S. Capitol, to “fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
This was after Trump and his legal team had already filed more than 60 legal challenges to the 2020 election, and lost every one, after Trump had tried to pressure officials in Georgia to find him more votes so that he could win that state, after Trump had tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to agree to not certify the election at the ceremonial Jan. 6 meeting of Congress.
“One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag. Several later died,” said Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and Democratic Party vice presidential nominee, when it was his turn to address the topic.
“And it wasn’t just in there,” Walz said. “In Minnesota, a group gathered on the state capitol grounds in St. Paul and said, We’re marching to the governor’s residence, and there may be casualties. The only person there was my son and his dog, who was rushed out crying by state police. That issue. And Mike Pence standing there as they were chanting, Hang Mike Pence.”
You could tell, from watching Vance on the split screen as this played out, from the look on his face, the body language, that he didn’t want to be on the stage in front of the cameras for this moment.
As comfortable as the Yale-educated lawyer was deflecting on his past statements on abortion rights, misrepresenting Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the rich and blaming Kamala Harris for things that happened while it was actually Trump and Pence in the White House, not herself and President Biden, Vance was doomed to being reduced to having to pretend to the world that what we all saw happen on Jan. 6, 2021, actually didn’t.
“Yeah, well, look, Tim, first of all, it’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country,” Vance tried to get away with saying, ignoring the obvious with relation to the events of Jan. 20 – that Trump, in an unprecedented move, skipped out on the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entirely.
Unable to accept his defeat, Trump slinked off to his golf club in Florida instead, the sorest of sore losers.
Vance, at this stage, tried to stanch the bleeding, calling back to his debate prep, where it had been decided by his handlers that he needed to try to pivot from Jan. 6 to efforting to pin COVID-era social-media censorship on Harris, which might work with people who don’t remember, a scant four years later, that Harris and Biden didn’t take office until we were nearly a year into the pandemic, and that the anti-vaxxers in the MAGA base were already nearly a year into claiming that they were being censored by social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter at that point.
The other pre-approved talking point from Vance’s debate prep was to conflate Hillary Clinton, after her 2016 election loss, pointing to the misinformation campaign financed by the Russian government to benefit the Trump campaign, as somehow being an equivalent to Trump trying to get election officials in Georgia to find him more votes, pushing his vice president to not certify the election on Jan. 6, and riling up a mob to “fight like hell.”
“That, to me, is a much bigger threat to democracy than what Donald Trump said when he said that protesters should peacefully protest on January 6th,” Vance said.
ICYMI: The crimes of Jan. 6
For more coverage, search “Jan. 6” on Augusta Free Press.
- FBI arrests Waynesboro man for violent actions against police in Jan. 6 attack on Capitol
- Insurrectionist from Virginia ordered to pay $25K fine; led Jan. 6 charge with megaphone
- Virginia man who led ‘patriots’ into U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 sentenced to six months
- FBI: 1,500 charged to date in ‘fight’ incited by former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6
- DOJ: Culpeper man arrested for actions during ‘Stop the Steal’ insurrection on U.S. Capitol
- Frederick County School Board member pleads guilty to role in Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach
- Virginia father, son used water bottles, flagpoles in Jan. 6 assault on U.S. Capitol Police
- Virginia man arrested by FBI for felony obstruction charge related to Jan. 6 insurrection
- Louisa man arrested for assaulting law enforcement during Jan. 6 Capitol Breach
- Former Marine, Virginia Proud Boys member who used ‘big stick’ in breach of Capitol sentenced
- Proud Boys leader sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, other charges
As Vance did his best to tap-dance around answering the question, Walz went straight at him.
“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen, and it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say, he is still saying he didn’t lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked Vance, who responded: “Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?
“That is a damning, that is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.
“It’s a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship,” Vance shot back, going back to his debate prep, which had him pivoting to, and I’m not making this up, defending the “First Amendment right to misinformation.”
“Kamala Harris wants to use the power of government and big tech to silence people from speaking their minds. That is a threat to democracy that will long outlive this present political moment,” Vance said.
Just to be clear there, JD Vance, United States senator, candidate for vice president, who would be a heartbeat away from the presidency if elected beside an obviously deteriorating 78-year-old man, wants you to believe that there’s a “First Amendment right to misinformation,” and that it’s a bigger danger to democracy to “silence people from speaking their minds” by disseminating obviously false information – like, oh, let’s say, for instance, that Haitian immigrants are eating dogs and cats – than to try to overturn an election result.
“I’m pretty shocked by this,” Walz said. “He (Trump) lost the election. This is not a debate. It’s not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump’s world, because, look, when Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage.”
That one had to hit close to home for JD Vance.
No doubt, the vetting process emphasized the correct answer to the question, Did I lose in 2020?
If he didn’t believe it when it was first asked of him, and didn’t believe it last night, he still had to pretend.
It’s too late for Team Trump to dump Vance from the ticket, but, hey, accidents happen, if you catch my drift.
I’d like to think that JD Vance is a smarter guy than to believe that Trump peacefully handed over power, and that it’s not an issue that, four years later, Trump still seems to believe that the 2020 election was stolen.
What should concern us is that JD Vance is that smart a guy, and what would happen if he and Trump were to get elected in November, not so much in the here and now, but years into the future.
“What I’m concerned about is, where is the firewall with Donald Trump? Where is the firewall if he knows he could do anything, including taking an election, and his vice president’s not going to stand to it,” Walz went on, making it clear that the question here isn’t so much about 2020 or even 2024, but rather, about 2028 and beyond.
“That’s what we’re asking you. Will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office even if the president doesn’t?” Walz said.
“I think Kamala Harris would agree. She wouldn’t have picked me if she didn’t think I would do that because, of course, that’s what we would do,” Walz said.
“America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election, of who’s going to honor democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump,” Walz said.
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Chris Graham
