In response to RNC Chair Michael Whatley refusing to commit to accepting November’s election results if Trump loses, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“Ahead of tonight’s debate, Donald Trump is sending out extreme election deniers like JD Vance and Michael Whatley to shill for him because he knows they’ll cover for his defeat by over 7 million votes in 2020. But even if Vance and Whatley are willing to debase themselves today, voters remember Trump’s loss in 2020 – and they’re ready to deliver the same result again in November.”

NEW: Notorious election denier RNC Chair Michael Whatley refused to commit to accepting November’s election results if Trump loses.

Kyra Phillips, ABC News: “Michael, if indeed [Trump] does not win, is this going to be a peaceful transition?”

Whatley: “Look, if we have a fair, accurate, secure, and transparent election, we obviously are going to accept the results.”

Trump’s running mate JD Vance just yesterday spewed election denialism by once again saying he would not have certified the 2020 election results. 

Spectrum News: “Vance again says he wouldn’t have certified 2020 election if he was vice president”

Jason Calacanis: “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.”

Trump elevated Whatley to lead the RNC because of his extreme history of election denial. 

New York Times: “Mr. Trump likes Mr. Whatley for one overwhelming reason, according to people who have discussed him with the former president: He is ‘a stop the steal guy,’ as one of the people described him. He endorses Mr. Trump’s false claims about mass voter fraud … Mr. Whatley has baselessly claimed that election security efforts from Republicans in North Carolina stopped Democrats from cheating.”

New York Times: “Trump’s Man at the R.N.C. Will Face Pressure to Satisfy His Election Lies”

New York Magazine: “Trump Taps Election Deniers Lara Trump, Michael Whatley to Lead RNC”

Associated Press: “In pushing Michael Whatley as the next leader of the Republican National Committee, Donald Trump zeroed in on the North Carolina GOP chairman’s dedication to ‘election integrity,’ baselessly suggesting he would ensure the 2024 race ‘can’t be stolen.”

Washington Post: “Trump repeated his false claims of the 2020 election being stolen and said that Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley was the most important person in the room because he is ‘going to stop the cheating.’

“‘We call it save the vote, guard the vote, stop the steal,’ he said, referring to what the RNC needed to be doing. The RNC has launched a program called ‘Bank Your Vote’ to bring in early votes.”

CNN: “Likely frontrunner for RNC chair parroted Trump’s 2020 election lies”

“Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, shared false claims that Republican observers were prevented from accessing polling locations and repeatedly said Democratic cities in swing states were engaged in ‘massive fraud.’ …

“His elevation to RNC chair could give Trump a loyalist more willing to devote resources to pursue future voter fraud claims in court should they arise…

“‘Regardless of how these lawsuits come out around the country with the presidential race we do know that there was massive fraud that took place,’ Whatley said in one late November 2020 interview on local North Carolina radio. ‘We know that it took place in places like Milwaukee and Detroit and Philadelphia.’”

Raleigh News & Observer: “Whatley has frequently repeated Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.”

Vice: “North Carolina Republican chair Michael Whatley falsely claimed in February that ‘we certainly saw evidence of voting irregularities, of election counting irregularities in a number of places around the country,’ and invented the claim that the reason Trump won North Carolina was his state party’s vigilance against Democrats’ attempts to cheat.”

Whatley has embraced Trump’s lies about January 6, refusing to hold Trump responsible for his role in the riot.

Steve Inskeep, NPR: “Did you agree with him on substance, that the president was responsible for provoking the riot on January 6?”

Whatley: “I think that what we saw on January 6 was absolutely horrific. It was beyond the pale. But at the end of the day, the people who attacked the Capitol bear the blame and the fault and the responsibility for attacking the Capitol.”

Inskeep: “Does the president bear any responsibility for lying to them for months about the results of the election, including on the day of the riot?” 

Whatley: “Well, I think the president certainly felt and still feels that there was massive voter irregularities across the country.”