By Yoshita Singh
New York, Oct 2 (PTI) Republican vice presidential candidate J D Vance has refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 elections, as he evaded a direct reply on whether the former president would seek to challenge this year's election results even if these were certified in every state.
Senator Vance of Ohio came face to face with his Democratic rival Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Tuesday in the only vice presidential debate of this election cycle.
The debate comes just over a month before the crucial US presidential elections when the country will choose between Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Trump as the next leader.
In reference to the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Vance did not give a clear answer when asked if Trump would again challenge election results this year even if every governor certifies the results.
"Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square. And that's all I've said, and that's all that Donald Trump has said," Vance said.
He added that Trump asked the protesters on January 6 to "protest peacefully", and the former president "left the White House" on January 20 when Joe Biden became president. "...now, of course, unfortunately, we have all of the negative policies that have come from the Harris-Biden administration,” he said.
Trump has denied wrongdoing regarding the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election won by Biden, a Democrat. The Republican presidential candidate has repeatedly claimed that he won the 2020 elections.
During the debate, the Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz also questioned Vance about Trump losing the 2020 election, NBC News reported.
“Did he (Trump) lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked.
"Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance was quoted as saying in the report.
Calling it a "non-answer", Walz said, "I'm pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. This is not a debate, it's not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump's world."
In the debate hosted by CBS News here, the two vice presidential candidates also sparred over issues ranging from immigration, gun policy, climate change, abortion and the economy.
Calling censorship a "threat" to democracy in the US, Vance alleged that Harris has engaged in it at an "industrial scale".
"She did it during Covid. She's done it over a number of other issues, and that, to me, is a much bigger threat to democracy than what Donald Trump said when he said the protesters should peacefully protest on January the sixth,” he said.
On immigration, Walz referred to false claims by Vance about Haitian immigrants eating the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio.
“There are consequences for this,” Walz said. To this, Vance replied, “The people I care most about in Springfield are the American citizens.”
Vance added that because of an influx of migrants, “you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that is totally unaffordable.”
On the issue of abortion, Walz was asked by the moderators to respond to an assertion from Trump that he supports abortion in the ninth month. “In Minnesota, what we did was restore Roe v. Wade,” Walz said. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care.”
“The states will decide what’s right for Texas might not be right for Washington. That’s not how this works,” Walz was quoted as saying by CNN.
“This is basic human rights. We have seen maternal mortality skyrocket in Texas (since its restrictions went into effect), outpacing many accounts in the world,” he added.
Meanwhile, Vance said Republicans need to "do so much better of a job at earning the American people's trust back on this issue, where they, frankly, just don't trust us."