DC insider calls out JD Vance's 'slick sleight of hand' to avoid mockery from key audience

Bill Maher challenged Vice President JD Vance on President Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud, and a well-connected Washington, D.C., reporter flagged a sneaky maneuver the V.P. used to avoid heckling from the talk show's live audience.

The vice president agreed that candidates should not refuse to concede elections but claimed that technology companies had interfered in the 2020 election by censoring political narratives to favor Democratic candidates, but Jonathan Martin, Politico's politics bureau chief and senior political columnist, told MS NOW's "Morning Joe" that Vance had sidestepped Trump's actual claims.

"I want to go back to that clip you played at thestart of this segment," Martin said. "I think it's reallyimportant for your viewers to see what Vance wasdoing, because it's a really slick slight of hand what Vance was doing. He has a studio audience, astudio audience there in Hollywood that skews liberal. He's got a host who definitely skews liberal in Bill Maher."

"Vance does not have thecourage to sit there and echo Trump saying 2020was stolen and Democrats literally stole the election because he knows that can't play with thataudience and that he's going to be laughed at andmocked if he says it out loud," Martin added, "so he doesn't echowhat Trump actually said, he just argues somethingelse entirely."

Martin said the game Vance was playing on Maher's show is the same balance that all Republicans are forced to strike with Trump looming over the party.

"He won't carry Trump's water therebecause he'll belaughed at it before a studio audience," Martin said. "But he also won't alienate Trump or disagree with Trump, so heargues something else entirely from the questionthat was posed, which is talking about what socialmedia companies did on speech in the lead up to '20. But that was never Trump's argument.Trump wasn't talking about that, Trump said, 'No, itwas literally stolen from me, they literally stolethe election from me.' But Vance won't litigatethat, so instead he talked about something elseand hopes that Trump won't notice, and this is astandard for the entire game for the last decade.What Vance was doing there is what the party does writ large, which is you just try to make this as least humiliating as possible – change theargument: 'Well, I'm talking about the broader case, thebroader case, because if you litigate what Trumpis actually saying..."

"It's embarrassing and obviously it doesn't standup on the facts, either, and what Vance was doingthere is that game they play every time – it's ahigh-brow Trumpism, it's an uptown version ofTrumpism," Martin added. "He won't say they stole the electiondirectly, I'll just say say something else thatwon't piss Trump off. He won't notice that I'mactually walking away from his craziness and I canjust live for one more day. Boy, that is the orderof the decade for the GOP."

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