JD Vance once again made clear that if he had been vice president on January 6, 2021, he would have acted unconstitutionally to make Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election, which as many of you may recall Trump lost. Vance has said this sort of thing before, usually framing it — passive voice — as something that should have been done, but Politico notes that this is the first time the ambulatory pile of human butt hair has done so since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee. So no worries, he’s not letting that get in the way of his membership in the insurrection glee club.
Vance explained in a Monday interview on the rightwing “All In Podcast” — no relation to the MSNBC show with Chris Hayes — that he “would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we had.”
Translation: Vance would have happily participated in Trump’s fake electors scheme, allowing illegal slates of self-appointed Trump-supporting “electors” to have equal standing with the certified electors who reflected the actual vote in seven states. That would have given the new Republican majority in the House the power to “resolve” the “discrepancy” and install Trump for a second term. (Sometimes I like to explain what shorthand like “the fake electors scheme” means, since it’s easy to forget to be shocked by what an obscene plot it really was.)
Politico notes that the podcasters tried to get Vance to acknowledge that meant he would have refused to certify the outcome of the election, but he just repeated that he would’ve asked states to “submit alternative slates of electors,” which makes it sound like he simply wants every point of view to be heard, not to overturn the actual point of view of the voters.
As Politico points out, Vance has been a bit more explicit about simply ignoring the voters in the past, telling George Stephanopoulos in January that he thought the 2020 vote was so terribly flawed that had he been the veep then, he would have insisted on new slates of [unelected] electors so that “the US Congress should have fought over it from there,” as if it would have been a careful debate, not a Republican reversal of the election. See? A perfectly civilized coup.
In Monday’s interview, Vance again asserted that “Mike Pence could have done more, whether you agree or disagree, Mike Pence could have done more to sort of surface some of the problems in the 2020 election,” although of course there was no significant voter fraud or any other “irregularities” that would have affected the outcome of the 2020 election. The dumb old Constitution doesn’t actually allow the Vice President to order new slates of electors; it simply states that the veep will “preside” over the counting of the electoral votes. Congress in 2022 changed the Electoral Count Act to make absolutely clear the the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial, to head off at least that route for future election-certification fuckery.
Also, Politico reports that Vance offered a new spin on why Pence chose not to join Trump’s coup four years ago: It’s not that Pence actually concluded he didn’t have the power to do so, it’s because he was a RINO warmonkey who hated Trump all along!
“In reality, if Donald Trump wanted to start a nuclear war with Russia, Mike Pence would be at the front of the line endorsing him right now,” Vance said. “Fundamentally the reason the old guard of the Republican Party hates Donald Trump — it’s not because of January 6, 2021, whatever your views on it — it’s because Donald Trump doesn’t think we should start stupid wars in foreign countries and that’s why they all hate him.”
If only more people would just hail Donald Trump as the prince of Peace, this world would be a much kinder, gentler place, now wouldn’t it?
[Politico / Photo: “TapTheForwardAssist,” Creative Commons License 4.0]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you prefer, a one-time donation would be groovy too, you warmongers.
I'm getting pretty ragey reading all about fucking JD Vance today. It's not Wonkette's fault, of course, but I really wish I didn't have to. Mostly because I wish such an evil little political gnome didn't exist.
"Linda Ronstadt slams ‘rapist’ Trump for holding Arizona rally in her namesake hall"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/12/linda-ronstadt-donald-trump-arizona-rally
Donnie, maybe you should stay away from rock and pop stars altogether.