Election-Denying Extremist JD Vance’s Project 2025 Agenda Will Help Donald Trump Undermine Our Democracy
October 1, 2024
Reminder: No matter what Vance says, Project 2025 is an “undeniably Trump-driven operation” with deep ties to the Trump-Vance ticket.
JD Vance is an extreme election denier who won’t commit to accepting this November’s election results, said he would not have certified the 2020 election, and continues to whitewash the violent January 6 insurrection.
HuffPost: “[Vance] said he would accept a Biden win only if he considered the election to be legitimate. … Vance’s comments illustrate a new tactic by Republican lawmakers, who are now placing conditions on accepting election results.”
New York Times: “J.D. Vance Says He Would Accept the Election Results, With a Caveat”
Spectrum News: “Vance again says he wouldn’t have certified 2020 election if he was vice president”
Jason Calacanis, All-In Podcast: “Would you have certified the [last result of the election]?”
Vance: “Again, I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we have.”
Calacanis: “You wouldn’t have certified, to be clear?”
Vance: “I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors, that’s what I would have done.”
ABC News: “JD Vance says [he] wouldn’t have certified 2020 race until states submitted pro-Trump electors”
Vance: “I think the entire post-2020 thing would have gone a lot better if there had actually been an effort to provide alternative slates of electors, and to force us to have that debate. I think it would’ve been a much better thing for the country. … [Trump] was trying to take a constitutional process to its natural conclusion.
“I think it would’ve been extraordinarily disappointing to a whole host of people that I care a lot about if Trump had just taken it [and conceded the 2020 election before January 6].”
New York Times: “[Vance] has said that, unlike Vice President Mike Pence in 2020, he would have helped Mr. Trump overturn the results, by accepting Trump electors that had not been elected by voters.”
Vance: “No real Republican with any credibility in the party is still blaming [Trump for January 6].”
The Hill: “JD Vance says he is ‘skeptical’ Pence’s life was in danger on Jan. 6”
Politico: “[Vance] downplayed the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, when Pence was forced to evacuate the building as rioters called for his hanging.”
Vance also has no problem with Donald Trump’s Project 2025 plans to use the government to go after his political opponents and replace civil servants with MAGA loyalists.
Kristen Welker, NBC: “Senator, if former President Trump were to win, if you were to be his vice president, would you support him appointing a special prosecutor to go after his political enemies, the Bidens?”
Vance: “Donald Trump is talking about appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Joe Biden for wrongdoing. … I think what Donald Trump is simply saying is we ought to investigate the prior administration.”
Vance: “I think that what Trump should do, like if I was giving him one piece of advice, is fire every single civil servant… replace them with our people.”
The Atlantic: “At the top of Vought and Dans’s must-do list for the next president: reissuing an executive order that Trump signed during his final months in office—and which President Joe Biden promptly reversed—that would allow the government to remove civil-service protections from as many as 50,000 federal jobs. The move would create a new class of employees known as Schedule F whom the president could fire at will.”
Associated Press: “Trump-era conservatives want to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing.”
Trump is still pushing baseless lies about his loss by over 7 million votes in the 2020 election.
Associated Press: “[Trump] is flooding the airwaves and his social media platform with distortions, misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories about his defeat.”
NBC News: “Re-litigating the 2020 election, repeating false claims it was stolen and casting aspersions on the security of mail voting remain major fixtures for [Trump] on the stump. … He regularly refers to the 2020 election as ‘rigged’ on his social media channels.”
Trump continues to praise and promise pardons for the violent insurrectionists he rallied to storm the Capitol on January 6, calling them “hostages” and “patriots.”
Washington Post: “Trump vows pardons, government apology to Capitol rioters if elected”
Rachel Scott, ABC News: “140 police officers were assaulted [on January 6]. Their injuries included broken bones, at least one officer lost an eye, one had two cracked ribs, two smashed spinal discs, another had a stroke. Were the people who assaulted those 140 officers, including those I just mentioned, ‘patriots’ who deserve pardons?”
[Trump refuses to answer]
Scott: “But sir, my question is on those rioters who assaulted officers. Would you pardon those people?”
Donald Trump: “Oh absolutely I would. If they’re innocent, I would pardon them.”
Scott: “They’ve been convicted.”
Trump: “Those people were treated very harshly… nobody was killed on January 6. But I think that the people of January 6 were treated very unfairly… they were there to complain about an election, and you know it’s very interesting, the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken to.”
The Hill: “Trump describes imprisoned Jan. 6 rioters as ‘hostages’”
TIME: “Trump has sought to recast the insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. ‘I call them the J-6 patriots,’ Trump tells TIME. When asked whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says: ‘Yes, absolutely.’”
NBC News: “Former President Donald Trump promised Wednesday night that if he is elected he will pardon a ‘large portion’ of the people convicted of federal offenses for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
Trump: “January 6, it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to. And they were there proud, they were there with love in their heart. That was an unbelievable — and it was a beautiful day.”
Trump has threatened political violence and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses in November, and he is vowing to be a dictator on “day one” if he wins.
Associated Press: “Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate”
TIME: “Exclusive: Donald Trump Says Political Violence ‘Depends’ on ‘Fairness’ of 2024 Election”
Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN: “Many people have lost American presidential elections over the last 230 years – Trump is the only one to say about violence if he loses ‘it depends.’”
The Atlantic: “Trump Says He’ll Be a Dictator on ‘Day One’”
NBC News: “Trump says there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the election”