MAGA Republicans stooped to new lows last week with their extremism, hypocrisy, chaos, and — as President Biden would call it — malarkey. In case you missed it: JD Vance refused to admit Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and again whitewashed the violence of January 6; Trump still refuses to commit to accepting this November’s election results; Vance called Marjorie Taylor Greene — a notorious ultra-MAGA hurricane conspiracy theorist and election denier — a “great friend”; new reporting revealed Trump repeatedly inserted politics into natural disasters as president; Vance fundraised with election denier Scott Taylor; Vance brazenly lied to the American people about Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act; new reporting made clear that another Trump term would bring more failures and broken promises to America’s auto industry, and Vance indicated that Trump will again let manufacturing plants in Michigan close; reporting revealed that Vance asked the Biden-Harris administration for over $200 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law despite spending months trashing the bill; and RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump dismissed abortion as a “niche issue.”

At the vice presidential debate, JD Vance refused to admit Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and once again whitewashed the violence of January 6…

ABC News: “At VP debate, JD Vance refuses to say Trump lost in 2020, downplays events of Jan. 6”

“In one of the most notable exchanges of the vice presidential debate, Republican candidate JD Vance refused to say former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and downplayed the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the ceremonial certification of the results.

“The Ohio senator also declined to rule out challenging the outcome of the 2024 race, even if votes were certified by every state leader as legitimate.

“Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, expressed exasperation and disbelief. He said such denialism had to stop because it was ‘tearing our country apart.’”

NBC News: “‘Damning non-answer’: Vance refuses to acknowledge Trump lost the 2020 election”

“JD Vance refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election during the vice presidential debate Tuesday and downplayed the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which injured more than 140 law enforcement officers. He also declined to say whether he would seek to challenge the results of this year’s election.”

… while Trump STILL refuses to commit to accepting this November’s election results.

Washington Post: “Donald Trump continued to stir doubt Tuesday about whether he will accept the outcome of the November presidential election. Asked in Milwaukee whether he trusts the election process, the former president told reporters, ‘I’ll let you know in about 33 days.’

“Trump, who has repeatedly denied his 2020 reelection loss, made the comment after saying in response to a previous question that he wants a ‘fair, honest election.’”

Vance called Marjorie Taylor Greene — a notorious ultra-MAGA hurricane conspiracy theorist and election denier — a “great friend.”

JD Vance: “We have got another great, strong, woman leader in Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene — I know we’re in her district, where’s Marjorie? Please say hello. Now you may not know this, but one of the very first endorsements, and frankly the first really important endorsement, that I got when I was running in the Republican Senate primary in Ohio a few years ago was from Marjorie Taylor Greene, so she’s been a great friend of mine. She’s a loyal person, and you guys have a hell of a congresswoman here in Marjorie.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Yes they can control the weather.

It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

ABC News: “Marjorie Taylor Greene says if she ran Jan. 6 Capitol attack, ‘We would have won’”

Newsweek: “Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has shared a video to Twitter that argues that the 2020 presidential election was stolen through a combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and voter fraud.”

Daily Beast: “Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Trump-backed candidate who won a Republican primary runoff this week and will very likely win the general race in her deep-red district, said in 2018 video unearthed by Media Matters: ‘We had witnessed 9/11, the terrorist attack in New York and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania and the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon. It’s odd there’s never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon. But anyways, I won’t—I’m not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy. But 9/11 had happened. Our country was very much into a war.’”

As Americans are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, new reporting revealed Trump repeatedly inserted politics into natural disasters as president.

E&E News: “Trump initially refused to give California wildfire aid because it’s a blue state, ex-aide says”

“[A] review of Trump’s record by POLITICO’s E&E News and interviews with two former Trump White House officials show that the former president was flagrantly partisan at times in response to disasters and on at least three occasions hesitated to give disaster aid to areas he considered politically hostile or ordered special treatment for pro-Trump states.

“Mark Harvey, who was Trump’s senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff, told E&E News on Wednesday that Trump initially refused to approve disaster aid for California after deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leanings.

“Trump changed his mind after Harvey pulled voting results to show him that heavily damaged Orange County, California, had more Trump supporters than the entire state of Iowa, Harvey said.

“‘We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you,’ said Harvey, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris alongside more than 100 other Republican former national security officials.”

Washington Post: “No, Biden didn’t take FEMA relief money to use on migrants — but Trump did”

“Trump falsely claims FEMA has run out of disaster money — and then falsely says that’s because money instead was spent on migrants. There is no evidence the Biden administration spent FEMA disaster money on migrants. Rather, that’s what Trump did.”

A former Trump official admitted “it would be impossible to do a transition without including Project 2025 people.”

New York Post: “‘Heritage, because of Project 2025, is radioactive,’ Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick told The Post … one former member of the Trump presidential personnel office (PPO) [claimed] ‘it would be impossible to do a transition without including Project 2025 people.’

“Lutnick’s team has ‘already reached out’ to people affiliated with Project 2025, the source went on, arguing there is no possibility of staffing a second Trump administration ‘unless he’s going outside of the conservative movement.’

“The former PPO staffer added that the Project 2025 database includes Republicans from a wide-ranging list of different groups, including Turning Point USA and ‘state legislative staff.’”

Vance fundraised with Scott Taylor, an election-denying extremist who has spread baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election results.

Scott Taylor: “Look, as I said before, there are tons of irregularities in the 2020 election that never happened before, right? There are people that have problems with it … There’s tons of things out there that changed in 2020 that are still there now.”

Vance: “President Trump has said … there were problems in 2020 and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues.”

Vance: “[Trump] peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.”

Vance: “Donald Trump and I think that there were problems in 2020.”

On the debate stage, Vance brazenly lied to the American people about Trump’s numerous efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. 

Roll Call: “Vance’s attempt to rewrite Trump’s Obamacare history”

“In a brazen attempt at rewriting history, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance claimed during Tuesday night’s debate that former President Donald Trump was working to ‘salvage’ the 2010 health care law while in office.

“Trump’s clear intent, along with Republicans when they controlled both the House and Senate during the first two years of his term, was to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, which is often referred to as Obamacare. The then-president held a preemptive victory celebration at the White House when one version of a bill to repeal the law passed the House, and at one point pushed for repealing now and replacing later if Senate Republicans could not coalesce around an alternative.”

New reporting made clear that another Trump term would only bring more failures and broken promises to America’s auto industry…

Detroit News: “History casts doubt on Donald Trump’s auto industry promises”

“Former President Donald Trump has been promising Michigan voters this fall that he can revive the state’s auto industry and return it to ‘greatness,’ but the Republican nominee failed to fully deliver on similar guarantees, made eight years ago, before his first term in the White House.

“On Friday night, Trump told a crowd at Macomb Community College in Warren that if he’s elected this fall, he’s going to bring back Michigan’s auto industry ‘at levels that have never been seen before.’ About eight years ago, on Oct. 31, 2016, at the same venue, Trump told another Michigan crowd that he would ‘bring your jobs back’ and, if elected in November 2016, ‘you won’t lose one plant.’

“Yet, the number of jobs in vehicle and parts manufacturing in Michigan declined during Trump’s first term — including before the COVID-19 pandemic hit — according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. And while there were some additional investments made by the industry in Michigan over his four years in office, there were also auto plants that closed in the state, including the General Motors Co. Warren Transmission plant in 2019.”

… and Vance indicated that Trump would again let manufacturing plants in Michigan close.

Detroit News: “Vance won’t commit to $500M federal grant for building EVs at Michigan auto plant”

“Republican vice presidential hopeful JD Vance would not commit a second Trump administration to honoring the Biden administration’s $500 million federal grant to General Motors Co. to convert a Cadillac sedan assembly plant in Michigan into a future electric vehicle plant.

“The Biden administration has said the conversion of GM’s Lansing Grand River Plant to assembling EVs would save 650 jobs and create 50 new positions. The Detroit automaker has signaled the assembled battery packs for the Lansing plant would come from the new battery plant it is constructing in nearby Delta Township, west of Lansing. …

“Vance’s comments on EVs while in Michigan on Wednesday tracked with Trump’s criticism of the Biden administration’s incentives for automakers to produce more electric vehicles.

“The Biden administration has not imposed a ban on gas-powered vehicle or required consumers to purchase EVs. But it has put in place numerous incentives and restrictions on future tailpipe emissions that incentivized automakers to build and sell more EVs.”

Recent reporting revealed that Vance asked the Biden-Harris administration for over $200 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — despite spending months trashing it as “crazy” and a “huge, huge mistake.”

Associated Press: “Vance criticized an infrastructure law as a candidate then embraced it as a senator”

“As he campaigned for the Senate two years ago, JD Vance harshly criticized a bipartisan 2021 law to invest more than $1 trillion in America’s crumbling infrastructure, calling it a ‘huge mistake’ shaped by Democrats who want to spend big taxpayer dollars on ‘really crazy stuff.’

“That hasn’t stopped the first-term Ohio senator and Republican vice-presidential nominee from seeking more than $200 million in federal money made available through the law for projects across his state, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press.”

RNC co-chair Lara Trump dismissed abortion as a “niche issue,” even as women across the country are suffering the horrifying impacts of Trump’s abortion bans.

Lara Trump: “[Democrats] are focusing on very niche issues like abortion.”

NBC News: “A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban”

ProPublica: “Abortion Bans Have Delayed Emergency Medical Care. In Georgia, Experts Say This Mother’s Death Was Preventable.”