Sen. JD Vance at the debate
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) participates in a debate at the CBS Broadcast Center on October 1, 2024 in New York City. This is expected to be the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 general election. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance would not admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election during Tuesday night's debate in an answer that his opponent, Tim Walz, called "damning."

The stunning moment came near the end of the 90-minute debate.

Walz asked Vance, "Did he lose the 2020 election?"

Vance dodged the answer by saying, "Tim, I'm focused on the future."

"That is a damning non-answer," Walz replied. "I'm pretty shocked by this. He lost the election. this is not a debate, it's not anything anywhere other than in Donald Trump's world."

Vance has previously said that he would not have certified the 2020 presidential election and would have sent an alternate set of electors to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020.

When the moderators asked Vance if he would accept the results of this year's election, Vance did not directly answer the question and said, "My own belief is that we should fight about issues, debate those issues peacefully in the public square and that's all I've said and that's all that Donald Trump has said."

VP Debate
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He then pivoted to claiming the real threat to democracy is the threat of censorship and claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has engaged in censorship "at an industrial scale."

"I think that is a much bigger threat to democracy than anything that we've seen in this country in the last 4 years, in the last 40 years."

In his response, Walz said, "America, I think you've got a real clear choice on this election on who's going to honor that democracy, and who's going to honor Donald Trump."

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