Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, refused multiple times to answer who won the 2020 election during his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, a performance described by countless onlookers as an “embarrassing” attempt to protect President Donald Trump’s “ego.”
“Who won the 2020 election?" asked Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) bluntly when questioning Clayton.
“I'm not gonna do this with you,” Clayton answered before giving similar answers to other lawmakers asking the same question.
Nearly a dozen Trump appointees have refused to definitively say who won the 2020 presidential election during their confirmation hearings, including former Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, among several others. Trump has long claimed, falsely and without evidence, that he won the 2020 election and that it was “stolen.”
Clayton joined this list of Trump nominees who refused to answer who won the 2020 election on Wednesday, but in doing so, was branded as “pathetic” by critics for his attempts to dodge the question.
“For all the right's talk about being ‘high testosterone,’ Trump requires everyone who wants to advance under him to constantly engage in public displays of humiliation,” wrote political scientist and author Richard Hanania in a social media post on X to his more than 216,000 followers.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer argued that Clayton’s “fear of Donald Trump was greater than [his] sense of duty to the American people,” and journalist Brad Polumbo called Clayton’s performance “so incredibly embarrassing.”
“Still find it crazy how many high-profile politicians still feel they have to flat-out deny something they all know to be true because of the ego of one senile man-child,” wrote writer and political commentator Ben Harris.
This is truly remarkable. How is this conceivably a “gotcha” question? https://t.co/UHlVxnV1rV
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) July 15, 2026