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Wednesday, October 02, 2024

How the VP Debate Went Off the Rails

How the VP Debate Went Off the Rails

J. D. Vance claimed that Donald Trump “peacefully gave over power on January 20.”

Photos of Tim Walz, J. D. Vance, and the U.S. Capitol
Illustration by Allison Zaucha / The Atlantic. Sources: Chip Somodevilla / Getty; Leah Millis / Reuters.

For more than 90 minutes, J. D. Vance delivered an impressive performance in the vice-presidential debate. Calm, articulate, and detailed, the Republican parried tricky questions about Donald Trump and put a reasonable face on policies that voters have rejected elsewhere. Vance’s offers were frequently dishonest, but they were smooth.

And then things went off the rails.

In the final question of the debate, moderators asked the senator from Ohio about threats to democracy, and in particular his statement that as vice president he would not have certified the 2020 election. In his response, Vance tried to rewrite the history of the January 6, 2021, riot and Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the election, revealing why he would be a dangerous vice president.

Vance claimed that Trump “peacefully gave over power on January 20” and said, “I believe we do have a threat to democracy in this country, but it’s not the threat that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want to talk about. It’s the threat of censorship.” This strange misdirection requires Americans to disbelieve what they saw and what Trump said in favor of an extremely online conservative talking point.

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