Trump Adviser Defends JD Vance’s Awful 2020 Election Debate Answer

During Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, Ohio Senator JD Vance refused to answer a direct question on whether Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called Vance’s response “a damning nonanswer.”

CNN’s Jim Acosta tried to ask the same simple question to Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser with the Trump campaign, in an interview on Wednesday.

“Yeah Corey, why is this so difficult for the Trump campaign to answer? I mean, it’s 2024,” Acosta said. “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election, can you answer that?”

Like Vance, Lewandowski attempted to sidestep actually answering the question.

“Jim, I think it’s very simple,” Lewandowski said. “The American people have passed the 2020 election, and focused on an election which is just under five weeks away.”

“So look, we can go back and relitigate the 2020 election or we can look at what we can do to make America for the everyday Americans who are struggling under Bidenomics—”

“Yeah, but Corey,” Acosta interjected. “It’s not relitigating, it’s just a simple question. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? I mean, that’s easy.”

“Why are we talking about 2020 anymore?” Lewandowski said. “Does the American people care about the 2020 election anymore?”

Acosta pointed out that on the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly claimed that there was “widespread fraud” in 2020, and had already begun to tee up challenges to election results.

“But Jim, Jim, we know there was fraud, there’s no question there was some fraud that took place in the 2020 election,” Lewandowski said. “There’s no question about that.”

“No widespread fraud,” Acosta clarified.

“But what does widespread mean, Jim? I mean, is one vote that was illegal enough?” Lewandowski said, exasperated.

“There were instances of voter fraud from Trump supporters,” Acosta pointed out. “I mean, you know that from the 2020 campaign.”

Trump and his allies have been accused of coordinating a plot in which 84 fake electors across seven states signed false electoral certificates claiming that Trump won the presidential election in their states.

Acosta noted that experts, including officials from the Trump campaign, had affirmed that there was no widespread voter fraud, as Lewandowski continued to spiral about what “widespread” actually meant.

“So I guess what you’re saying is, is that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election,” Acosta interjected. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“What I’m saying is Joe Biden is the president of the United States. You recognize that, and I recognize that,” Lewandowski said, continuing to whine about how they ought to talk about the 2024 election instead.

“Will Donald Trump honor the results of the 2024 election?” Acosta pressed. “Will he do that?”

“Jim, did-did-did Hillary Clinton honor the results? No. Did Democrats honor the results?” Lewandowski cried.

“Yes, she did. She called and conceded the election,” Acosta replied.

As Lewandowski continued to rant, Acosta explained, “Corey I was with you guys on election night in Manhattan in 2016. She called, she called the then president elect and conceded the election.”

Completely unwilling to address any of Acosta’s “hypotheticals” or reckon with his own damning nonanswer, Lewandowski continued to rant about illegal immigration and the economy.

It’s become increasingly clear that no member of the Trump campaign is willing to answer simple questions about the previous election, or ensure a peaceful transition of power in the next one.

On Tuesday night, Donald Trump made a threat against the electoral process that was quickly overshadowed by the vice presidential debate.

The former president was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for a campaign speech, after which he took questions from the press. Trump was asked whether “he trusts the process this time around,” alluding to his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and attempts to overturn it.

“I’ll let you know in about 33 days,” Trump said, about the time until November’s elections.

It’s a disturbing statement from Trump, and this close to the election, it’s a promise to follow through on the other similar election threats he’s made in the last few months. It’s worth remembering that he’s been refusing to say that he would accept unfavorable election results since his 2016 campaign for president. And his infamous rejection of the 2020 presidential election results was followed by the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, as well as fake elector plots across the country in states including Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.

This time around, his supporters are already plotting to swing the election in his favor. In Georgia, his supporters are using the state election board to make changes that would help him. Across the country, many Republicans say they won’t accept the election results if he loses and even pledge to take action. Trump himself is attacking the U.S. Postal Service and laying the groundwork to delegitimize mail-in ballots, even though his handpicked Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is hurting the postal system on his own.

November’s election could very well be chaotic, especially if results are very close in battleground states. Trump is desperate to return to the White House and enact vengeance on his enemies, as well as bury the legal cases against him. Will the electoral system be able to withstand MAGA’s plots?

JD Vance’s big idea to prevent school shootings is … bigger locks?

During the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Vance offered his answer to how he would address school shootings. “And I say this, not loving the answer,” Vance said.

“We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the doors stronger,” Vance explained. “We’ve got to make the windows stronger, and, of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers. Because the idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys, it just doesn’t fit with recent experience.”

It was a particularly weak moment for Vance, who had previously touted that he had “well-developed views on public policy” he planned to put on display during the debate.

Online, it seemed like Vance was the only one into his limp answer to gun violence.

A Gen-Z college student interviewed by MSNBC after the debate called Vance’s answer “ridiculous.”

“I mean, the issue is guns, the issue is not better locks on doors,” she said.

California Representative Adam Schiff wrote in a post on X, “Vance solution for gun violence? Stronger doors at school? Stronger windows? Really?How about an assault weapons ban and background checks. And a VP who put kids over the NRA.”

Meanwhile, Vance’s opponent, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz replied, “Sometimes it is just the guns.”

Last month, after a deadly mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, Vance resigned himself to school shootings as a bleak “fact of life” and made a similar suggestion about school security being the solution.

“We’ve got to bolster security so that if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they’re not able to,” Vance said.

At the time, Vance was criticized for his callous acceptance of mass violence and blatant reluctance to strengthen gun laws.

Donald Trump has fleshed out his Project 2025–inspired Department of Education plan, and it involves handing the reins and lofty responsibilities of public school administration over to a group of people with all the time in the world: parents.

“I figure we’ll have like one person plus a secretary,” the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd in Milwaukee Tuesday night. “You’ll have a secretary to a secretary. We’ll have one person plus a secretary, and all the person has to do is, ‘Are you teaching English? Are you teaching arithmetic? What are you doing? Reading, writing, and arithmetic. And are you not teaching woke?’

“Not teaching woke is a big factor,” Trump continued. “We’ll have a very small staff. We can occupy that staff right in this room, actually I think this room is too large. And all they’re going to do is they’re going to see that the basics are taken care of. You know, we don’t want someone to get crazy and start teaching a language that we don’t want them to teach.”

Not only do parents already have enough on their plates without trying to run the public school system, it’s likely that Trump has a specific group of parents in mind to direct education policy.

The goals he lays out are startlingly akin to the policy points of the far-right “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty, who hosted Trump as the keynote speaker at their annual conference in September. Moms for Liberty has recently ingratiated itself significantly into national politics and was listed as a member of Project 2025’s advisory board.

In the same speech, Trump also drew attention to the amount of real estate occupied in D.C. by Department of Education buildings, plotting that the dissolution of the federal agency would allow “somebody else to move in.”

“They’re run by the state, and run by the parents, because in Washington—you know half of the buildings, such a large number, every building you pass in Washington says Department of Education,” Trump said. “You’re gonna have a lot of vacant space. Now we can have maybe somebody else move in.”

Trump’s proposal to dismantle the Department of Education wholesale is nearly identical to Project 2025, despite his campaign spending months trying to distance itself from the 920-page Christian nationalist manifesto.

Project 2025 has also proposed revisiting federal approval of the abortion pill, banning pornography nationwide, placing the Justice Department under the control of the president, slashing federal funds for climate change research in an effort to sideline mitigation efforts, and increasing funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate may not have changed many minds in the electorate. 

Polls following the contest between Republican Senator JD Vance and Democratic Governor Tim Walz don’t show an uncontested winner, with CNN reporting that 51 percent of viewers gave the edge to Vance versus 49 percent for Walz.

The favorability numbers for both candidates improved after the debate: Walz’s went from 46 percent favorable and 32 percent unfavorable to 59 percent favorable and 22 percent unfavorable among people who watched the debate. Vance’s numbers went from 30 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable to 41 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable.

But largely, the debate didn’t change many people’s minds.

Politico’s polls found that who viewers thought won the debate depended on their political loyalties. About 72 percent of Democrats think Walz won the debate, with a similar number of Republicans thinking Vance won. Perhaps more importantly, Walz won over independents, with 58 percent of them saying that he was the winner as opposed to 42 percent for Vance—but these people were also more likely to say they didn’t even watch the debate.  

Demographically, Walz’s strongest support came from people who tend to support the Democratic Party: younger people, those aged between 25 and 34, people with college degrees, and Black and Latino poll respondents, according to Politico. Vance drew his support from Republican standbys: people over 55, white voters, and people without college degrees. Men and women were evenly divided on who won. 

Vance came into Tuesday night’s debate in a massive polling deficit, showing him as more unpopular than any other vice presidential pick in modern U.S. history at this point in the race. He may have improved his standing somewhat given that starting point, but it wasn’t at the expense of Walz. Republicans don’t have much of an answer for Vance’s unpopularity, so it’s up to the Republican vice presidential nominee to improve his stock. 

On Tuesday night, while Vance did say some horrific things about January 6 and immigration, it doesn’t appear to have hurt him, at least according to these early polls. Now he just has the task of staying away from weirdness and hoping more damaging statements from his past don’t resurface.