JD Vance: ‘Congress Should Have Fought Over’ Multiple Slates of Electors in 2020

Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that if he had been vice president in 2020, he would have accepted multiple slates of electors because “the U.S. Congress should have fought over it.”

Partial transcript as follows:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve mentioned as a possible vice president for Donald Trump. Had you been vice president on January 6th, would you have certified the election results?

VANCE: Oh, George, this is such a ridiculous question, in part because the law has changed here. We, of course, had a major legal change in the Electoral Count Act.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I didn’t ask you about going forward. I asked you what you would have done. I asked you what you would have done.

VANCE: George, here’s what I think, here’s what I think happened in 2020. And I know you guys are obsessed with talking about this. I have to make a point here. You constantly say to people like me, why do you talk about January 6, why do you talk about the election of 2020, and then you ask about this multiple times during a six minute interview.

But, look, you asked the question, and I’ll answer it. Do I think there were problems in 2020? Yes, I do. Do I think it was a problem that big technology companies, working with the intelligence services, censored the presidential campaign of Donald Trump? Yes. Do I think it’s a problem that Pennsylvania changed its balloting rules in the middle of the election season in a way that even some courts in Pennsylvania have said was illegal? Yes, I think these were problems, George, and I think there is a political solution to those problems.

So, litigating which slate of electors were legitimate I think is fundamentally the political solution to the problems that existed in 2020. It’s a reasonable debate to have. And I find it weird, George, that people like you obsess with what I call what happened in 2020, you’re so incurious about what actually happened in 2020, which is why so many people mistrust our elections in this country. We’ve got to do better, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m not the least – I’m not the least bit incurious. In fact, you laid out a litany there, but you didn’t answer the question. I asked, would you have certified the election results had you been vice president?

VANCE: If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there. That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020. I think that’s what we should have done.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So it’s very clear, you would have done what Donald Trump asked you to do there, not what Vice President Mike Pence did. You said that that’s about the past, but, of course, Donald Trump —

VANCE: No, no, George – George, it’s not – no, no, George, it’s not about what – it’s not about what –

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that’s what you just said.

VANCE: George, it’s not about what Donald Trump asks somebody to do. It’s about, what do we do when you have a problem like what happened in 2020? How do you respond to it? How does the political system respond to this? You can’t have a media apparatus that looks, for example, at the intelligence services working with technology companies to censor Americans and say, well, we just can’t deal with this. There’s no solution to this problem.

And by the way, George, I don’t want to talk about this stuff because I think what happened in 2020 is far, far less important than what’s happened since 2020. The wide-open southern border, the fentanyl crisis plaguing our communities, the inflation crisis that is making it hard for Americans to afford a good middle class lifestyle. We need to litigate the 2024 election about those issues.

You guys are obsessed with talking about 2020. I’m happy to answer the questions, but I think it’s a disservice to the American people that you’re so preoccupied with it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it’s President Trump who’s preoccupied with it, too. He’s the one who’s talked about pardoning those who participated in the riots. And you did just answer the question. You would refuse to re-certify the election.

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN