Unpacking JD Vance's Absurd Statements About The 2020 Election And Trump’s Big Lie

This article is part of HuffPost’s biweekly politics newsletter. At the end of Tuesday night’s debate, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance wouldn’t give a straight answer when Democrat Tim Walz asked whether Donald Trump lost the election in 2020. “I’m focused on the future,” Vance said, before quickly trying to change the subject: “Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?” Walz termed it a “damning non-answer” and went on to say voters had a clear choice in the upcoming election between “who’s going to honor that democracy and who’s going to honor Donald Trump.” Aside from one stray comment he later brushed off as sarcasm, Trump has never conceded his loss in the 2020 election and has continued to insist, without any evidence whatsoever, that it was stolen. They also temporarily suppressed links to an October New York Post story about material obtained from President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop, due to concerns about the provenance of the material and memories of 2016, when Russia hacked and leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee in an effort to boost Trump’s candidacy. “That was a way in which the basic democratic will of America was obstructed.” The material from Hunter Biden’s laptop has since been authenticated, investigated and used against him in criminal cases and even an impeachment attempt against his father, though the central allegation that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings has remained unsubstantiated.