In the biggest exchange of the vice-presidential debate, J.D. Vance left little doubt: Had he been Donald Trump’s vice president on January 6, 2021, he would have faithfully done Trump’s bidding and tried to scuttle the congressional count of electors to help Trump overturn his presidential election loss. In other words, Vance would have done what Mike Pence would not.
As many have correctly noted, this showed that Vance would not have stood up to Trump when democracy itself hung in the balance. Vance would have put Trump’s likely criminal scheme to remain in the presidency illegitimately above his duty to help execute the peaceful transfer of power, the bedrock of self-rule and our stable (sometimes, anyway) political order.
But we risk overlooking something important if we narrow the question to what Vance would have done in the situation Pence faced. Trump is explicitly vowing to violate his oath of office in numerous other ways in a second term, from prosecuting political opponents without cause to seeking to bar the news media from reporting critically on him. In the key exchanges of the night, what Vance really revealed is that he cannot be counted on to put the rule of law and the Constitution above Trump if he wins and commits those violations of his oath as well, as he inevitably would.
In those exchanges, a CBS News moderator reminded Vance that he has said he wouldn’t have certified the electors on January 6 and would instead have asked key states to submit alternate electors. Asked if Vance would again challenge a Trump loss if it is certified by swing state governors, Vance defended his previous statement, saying that “all” he had advocated for is having a “debate” over the “problems” that Trump identified in the 2020 election.
That’s false: Vance actually has said he would have “told the states” that “we needed to have multiple slates of electors” so Congress could debate over what really happened in the election. But the vice president’s role in counting electors is purely ceremonial, and he has no constitutional authority to reject the legitimate electors. In short, Vance himself previously said he would have unconstitutionally, illegally abused that role to thwart the counting of the legitimate electors. At the debate, this is what he effectively defended.
Vance also completely rewrote the history of January 6, declaring that Trump “peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.” The weeks-long efforts to corrupt government officials at all levels in the runup to that transfer of power; the incitement of the mob to intimidate lawmakers into abandoning their own role in executing the transfer; the deliberate manipulation of the mob to threaten Pence—Vance erased all these things, and thus acted as an apologist for all of it.
There’s also the crucial exchange in which Tim Walz pressed Vance to acknowledge that Trump had lost the election. Vance dodged, replying that “I’m focused on the future,” prompting Walz to rejoin: “That is a damning non-answer.” As Walz added, this shows that one of the two men will honor democracy, and the other will “honor Donald Trump.”
But to grasp the full import of this, recall what Trump has threatened in a second term beyond subverting hated electoral outcomes. He has vowed to prosecute political opponents regardless of what evidence shows. He has called for baseless indictments of lawmakers who investigated his insurrection. He has floated sending the military into Democratic-run cities to carry out his domestic agenda. He has mused about groundless prosecutions of elections officials. He has threatened to prosecute Google for carrying negative stories about him and has suggested television networks should not be “allowed” to air the political opposition’s criticism of him, a suggestion that he’d resort to untold executive abuses to suppress critical media coverage.
We don’t know how far Trump would get with such designs. But at a minimum he has expressly telegraphed a willingness—and even an active intent—to attempt them once back in the presidency.
“Each of these threats by Trump would be a violation of the pledge a president makes to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,” said Corey Brettschneider, a political scientist and author of The Presidents and the People, a book about authoritarian presidencies and violations of the oath of office. “Vice presidents are also obliged to protect the Constitution. But what Vance showed is that his commitment would be to the authoritarian vision of Trump.”
It’s theoretically possible that Vance would resist some of these things as vice president. But why have any confidence in that after seeing his debate performance? Vance knew perfectly well that he had to publicly reaffirm his willingness to violate his Constitutional duty on Trump’s behalf—as Pence would not—lest he incur the anger of the Audience of One. That’s exactly what Vance did at the debate, even if he did not say it quite that way.
What’s more, certain things about Vance’s worldview should cause additional doubts. Vance’s evolution from Never Trumper into a full MAGA disciple appears rooted in the idea that Trump mystically revealed the deep rot of corruption infesting our entire political and social order. As Ian Ward usefully details, Vance harbors a genuine openness to Trumpian lawlessness—such as believing Trump should dramatically purge the government and defy the courts if they stand in the way—because he sees such acts as necessary to reverse the moral and political corruption, exposed by Trump, that has mired the nation as Vance understands it in an existential crisis.
The problem with this vague diagnosis is that, if the system is in such deep trouble, thus requiring a Trumpian figure to set it right, then it’s not clear what sort of nakedly authoritarian actions would not be justified by this mission.
Indeed, Trump picked Vance in part precisely because his previous comments about January 6 indicate his willingness to place Trump above the Constitution when it really counts. The dark truth is that Trump is campaigning on an explicit promise of an authoritarian presidency—an open vow to serially violate his oath of office in untold ways—and he fully expects his consiglieres not to go weak-kneed about it this time around.
What Vance really displayed at the debate is that he understands all this about Trump with perfect clarity. And he’s fully on board with all of it.