“In the debate, you were asked to clarify if you believe Trump lost the 2020 election. Do you believe he lost the 2020 election?” “I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election, but we’re focused on the future. I think there’s an obsession here with focusing on 2020. I’m much more worried about what happened after 2020, which is a wide-open border, groceries that are unaffordable. And look—” “Senator, yes or no? Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” “Let me ask you a question. Is it OK that big technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, which independent analysis have said cost Donald Trump millions of votes?” “Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” “Did big technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost Trump millions of votes? I think that’s the question.” “Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?” “And I’ve answered your question with another question. You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.” “I have asked this question repeatedly. It is something that is very important for the American people to know. There is no proof, legal or otherwise, that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election.” “You’re repeating a slogan rather than engaging with what I’m saying, which is that when our own technology firms engage in industrial scale censorship, by the way, backed up by the federal government, in a way that independent studies suggest affect the votes, I’m worried about Americans who feel like there were problems in 2020. I’m not worried about this slogan that people throw, ‘Well, every court case went this way.’ I’m talking about something very discrete: a problem of censorship in this country that I do think affected things in 2020, and more importantly, that led to Kamala Harris’s governance, which has screwed this country up in a big way.” “Senator, would you have certified the election in 2020, yes or no?” “I’ve said that I would have voted against certification because of the concern that I just raised. I think that when you have technology companies—” “The answer is no.” “When you have technology companies censoring Americans at a mass scale in a way that, again, independent studies have suggested affect the vote, I think that it’s right to protest against that, to criticize that. And that’s a totally reasonable thing.” “So the answer is no. And the last question, will you support the election results this time and commit to a peaceful transfer of power?” “Well, first of all, of course we commit to a peaceful transfer of power. We are going to have a peaceful transfer of power. I, of course, believe that peaceful transfer of power is going to make Donald Trump the next president of the United States. But if there are problems, of course, in the same way that Democrats protested in 2004 and Donald Trump raised issues in 2020, we’re going to make sure that this election counts, that every legal ballot is counted. We’ve filed almost 100 lawsuits at the R.N.C. to try to ensure that every legal ballot has counted. I think you would maybe criticize that. We see that as an important effort to ensure election integrity, but certainly we’re going to respect the results in 2024. And I feel very confident they’re going to make Donald Trump the next president.
