JD Vance couldn’t conjure a response Friday when asked about Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Trump has long claimed that he “won” the 2020 presidential election, and that the process was “rigged,” making similar statements in nearly every campaign stop four years later.
Vance, who finally said Thursday that he too believes Trump won that election, was speaking in Lindale, Georgia the next day, when he was asked to respond to the former president’s statements.
“Senator, would you use that specific term ‘rigged?’” asked one reporter. “You have said in the past you have concerns about election integrity in the past and going forward, and do you concur with the president that the 2020 election was rigged?”
Vance responded with his typical hostility.
“So, I’m from Ohio, I’m not from the South. But I think, I think in the South there is a phrase that really works: Bless your heart,” Vance replied.
“First of all, we’re focused on the future,” Vance said, skating past the question. “If you look at what President Trump says, what I say, we are focused on the future.”
In Vance’s non-answer, how he intends to get to the future that he and Trump have planned is painfully clear: by once again undermining the results of the presidential election.
During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Vance gave a similarly “damning non-answer” when asked whether or not he believed Trump had won in 2020, claiming that he was “focused on the future.”
“Look, 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,” said Vance. Two days later, he finally said loud and clear that he believes Trump won that election.
Earlier this week, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer brushed off concerns about the Republican reaction to the last election, claiming that only the liberal media was still focused on the election conspiracy. One of Trump’s top advisers Corey Lewandowski also flailed in response to the question of who won in 2020, claiming that Americans no longer “care” about that election. It seems not only that Trump still cares, but that he’s obsessed with 2020.
Trump’s comments about the 2020 election have taken a new light this week, as the election approaches a month away. Earlier this week, an unsealed filing from special counsel Jack Smith alleged that Trump planned to declare victory no matter the results of the 2020 election, and plotted to challenge the results, even when he was repeatedly told he had no evidence of any election fraud.
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