JD Vance Serves Up Word Salad as He Swerves on Crucial Trump Question
For weeks, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has skirted and dodged answering whether he believes that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. But on Wednesday, Vance offered his most eyebrow-raising take thus far: “Not by the words that I would use.”
Speaking before a crowd in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, the MAGA movement’s second-in-command insisted that he had already answered the question when it was posed to him in dozens of previous interviews. In a word-salad reply, Vance refused to yield to the idea that Trump had not secured the presidency in 2020—but he also suggested that Trump may not have lost at all.
“I think there were serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use,” Vance said.
Vance: Did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use pic.twitter.com/9yLOMLAQK0
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 16, 2024
Vance isn’t the only MAGA ally still holding out on the 2020 election results in the waning days of the 2024 race. Speaking with NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson couldn’t help but qualify his answer as to whether he would certify the results of the upcoming election no matter the outcome.
“Regardless of who wins, you’ll certify the results?” asked host Kristen Welker.
“Regardless? Of course, yes, if the election is free and fair and legal, and we pray and hope that it is, there’s a lot of work being done to make sure that’s true,” Johnson said. “I think this one’s going to be so large there’ll be no question. I think Donald J. Trump is your next president, and that can’t happen soon enough.”
When Welker pointed out that saying “if” the election is fair, as well as Trump’s continued lack of a concession over the 2020 vote, was likely to undermine voter confidence in the upcoming election, Johnson was quick to brush off her concerns.
“The point is the process works. We have the peaceful transfer of power. We did in 2020,” he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that an armed and violent mob stormed the Capitol to try to prevent that transfer of power.
Loyalty, after all, has a premium in any future Trump administration.
