Possibly the biggest portion of Tuesday night's vice presidential debate came almost at the end, when Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz demanded Ohio Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance tell voters if he believes Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.
Vox called it the "only moment from the VP debate that mattered."
The Harris-Walz campaign released an ad (video below) Wednesday morning, which garnered one million views in under three hours on the social media platform X.
Trump's campaign in 2020 was based largely on his "Big Lie," the false claim that the election was "rigged," as he paved the way for massive doubt from supporters which ultimately led to efforts to overturn the election—including his own for which he has been criminally charged—along with the "fake electors" sent by several states, and the January 6 insurrection.
"This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen," Walz told Vance at the tail of a very long and very heated encapsulation of his beliefs on January 6. "And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say, he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?"
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"Tim," Vance replied, "I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?"
"That is a damning. That is a damning non answer," Walz declared.
Here's the transcript via CBS News (without the moderators' remarks) that led up to Gov. Walz's pointed question.
WALZ: "There's one, there's one, though, that this one is troubling to me. And I say that because I think we need to tell the story. Donald Trump refused to acknowledge this. And the fact is, is that I don't think we can be the frog in the pot and let the boiling water go up. He was very clear. I mean, he lost this election, and he said he didn't. One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag. Several later died. And it wasn't just in there. In Minnesota, a group gathered on the state capitol grounds in St. Paul and said we're marching to the Governor's residence and there may be casualties. The only person there was my son and his dog, who was rushed out crying by state police. That issue. And Mike Pence standing there as they were chanting, hang Mike Pence. Mike Pence made the right decision. So, Senator, it was adjudicated over and over and over. I worked with kids long enough to know, and I said, as a football coach, sometimes you really want to win, but the democracy is bigger than winning an election. You shake hands and then you try and do everything you can to help the other side win. That's, that's what was at stake here. Now, the thing I'm most concerned about is the idea that imprisoning your political opponents already laying the groundwork for people not accepting this. And a President's words matter. A President's words matter. People hear that. So I think this issue of settling our differences at the ballot box, shaking hands when we lose, being honest about it, but to deny what happened on January 6, the first time in American history that a President or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and the peaceful transfer of power. And here we are four years later in the same boat. I will tell you this, that when this is over, we need to shake hands, this election, and the winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It's tearing our country apart."
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VANCE: "Yeah, well, look, Tim, first of all, it's really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country. We are going to shake hands after this debate and after this election. And of course, I hope that we win, and I think we're going to win. But if Tim Walz is the next vice president, he'll have my prayers, he'll have my best wishes, and he'll have my help whenever he wants it. But we have to remember that for years in this country, Democrats protested the results of elections. Hillary Clinton in 2016 said that Donald Trump had the election stolen by Vladimir Putin because the Russians bought, like, $500,000 worth of Facebook ads. This has been going on for a long time. And if we want to say that we need to respect the results of the election, I'm on board. But if we want to say, as Tim Walz is saying, that this is just a problem that Republicans have had. I don't buy that."
WALZ: "January 6th was not Facebook ads. And I think a revisionist history on this. Look, I don't understand how we got to this point, but the issue was that happened. Donald Trump can even do it. And all of us say there's no place for this. It has massive repercussions. This idea that there's censorship to stop people from doing, threatening to kill someone, threatening to do something, that's not censorship. Censorship is book banning. We've seen that. We've seen that brought up. I just think for everyone tonight, and I'm going to thank Senator Vance. I think this is the conversation they want to hear, and I think there's a lot of agreement. But this is one that we are miles apart on. This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say, he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?"
VANCE: "Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?"
WALZ: "That is a damning. That is a damning non answer."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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