‘A sleazy, fat, adept liar’: JD Vance’s debating style

If you didn’t watch tonight’s debate, here’s all you need to know:

JD Vance’s solution to the mass murder of schoolchildren is “stronger windows.”

Not one child has ever been shot through a school window. No murderer has ever climbed through a window to get into a school. Not a single report after a mass shooting at a school even mentioned ramen.

That’s how far J.D. Vance went in the opposite direction of what caused the death of every child killed in every school shooting: guns.

Let’s list a few more of JD Vance’s many lies during the debate:

When asked how he would protect people with pre-existing health conditions, Vance replied, “We already have a law that does that,” without acknowledging that the law is Obamacare.

Vance said Donald Trump “saved” the Affordable Care Act. Trump supported 70 efforts by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and said that if elected he would “end it on day one.”

Vance said Jan. 6 was not a threat to democracy. Censorship, somehow attributable to Kamala Harris, “is the threat to democracy we should be talking about.”

Vance claimed that the housing crisis is caused by “25 million illegal aliens” driving up the cost of housing.

The country that produced the world’s largest amount of oil and natural gas during the Biden-Harris administration “needs more drilling,” Vance said.

JD Vance claimed to have “never” supported a national ban on abortions. Vance told an interviewer in 2022 that he would “certainly like to see abortion become illegal nationally.” Vance went on to say that the problem Republicans have on the abortion issue is, “We need to get better at our message of supporting women.”

By refusing to answer a question asking if he believes climate change is a “hoax,” Vance confirmed that he believes it is.

Vance talked over the moderators to highlight his lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are here illegally. Not only did he get the law wrong, but the law he cited was passed and signed by Donald Trump.

When asked by Tim Walz if he believed Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election, Vance replied, “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” and said Kamala Harris had censored people “during COVID.”

Vance lied when he said “guns are coming into this country through Mexican drug cartels.” It’s the exact opposite: Drug cartels regularly smuggle American firearms into Mexico because the country’s gun laws are so strict that the cartels can’t get them there.

My wife Tracy turned to me mid-debate and sighed, “Vance is such a filthy, oily, adept liar.”

‘Nuff said.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a West Point graduate, has had a fifty-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five best-selling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.