New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro made repeated attempts to bait Senator JD Vance (R-OH), vice-presidential running mate to former President Donald Trump, but Vance made it clear early on that he was not having it.
Vance sat for the interview last week, and several clips made their way to X on Friday — including one in which Garcia-Navarro pressured Vance five times to say that Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election.
WATCH:
WATCH: @JDVance flips the script on a New York Times reporter by pointing out that the government, media, and Big Tech rigged the 2020 election by teaming up to censor the Hunter Biden laptop, costing President Trump millions of votes.
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— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 11, 2024
“In the debate, you were asked to clarify if you believe Trump lost the 2020 election,” she began. “Do you believe he lost the 2020 election?”
“I think that Donald Trump and I have both raised a number of issues with the 2020 election, but we’re focused on the future,” Vance replied. “I think there’s an obsession here with focusing on 2020. I’m much more worried about what happened after 2020, which is a wide-open border, groceries that are unaffordable, and look, Lulu —”
“Senator, yes or no,” Garcia-Navarro interrupted. “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”
“Let me ask you a question,” Vance pushed back. “Is it okay that big technology companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, which independent analyses have said cost Donald Trump millions of votes?”
Garcia-Navarro ignored Vance’s question, saying instead, “Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”
“Did big technology companies censor a story that independent studies have suggested would have cost Trump millions of votes?” Vance refused to budge. “That’s the question.”
“Senator Vance, I’m going to ask you again,” Garcia-Navarro repeated. “Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?”
“And I’ve answered your question with another question,” Vance shot back. “You answer my question, then I’ll answer yours.”
“I’ve asked this question repeatedly. This is something that is very important for the American people to know,” Garcia-Navarro insisted. “There is no proof, legal or otherwise, that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election.”
“You’re repeating a slogan rather than engaging with what I’m saying,” Vance protested, arguing that it was irresponsible to answer her question without acknowledging the context that complicated either answer. “I’m worried about Americans who feel like there were problems in 2020, I’m not worried about this slogan that people throw out — ‘Well, every court case went this way — I’m talking about something very discrete: a problem of censorship in this country that I do think affected things in 2020, and more importantly, that led to Kamala Harris’ governance which has screwed this country up in a big way.”
In a second clip, Garcia-Navarro attempted to separate the housing crisis in the United States from the massive influx of illegal immigrants under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and Vance was not having that either.
WATCH:
JD Vance puts on an absolute masterclass in a NYT interview where the host tries to gaslight him on America’s housing crisis and illegal immigration problem
— CartierFamily (@cartierfamilyZ) October 13, 2024
“One thing that everyone agrees on is that more housing is necessary in this country, right? The reason that there is a housing crisis is that not enough houses have been built — Garcia-Navarro said, but Vane interrupted.
“And that we have 25 million people who shouldn’t be here. I think it’s both,” he said.
Garcia-Navarro went on to suggest that the housing crisis would get worse if illegal immigrants were deported because, she argued, they composed a large percentage of the labor force in the construction industry.
“Well, I think it’s a fair question because we know that back in the 1960s, when we had very low levels of illegal immigration, Americans didn’t build houses,” Vance dead-panned. “But, of course they did. And I’m being sarcastic in service of a point, Lulu: the assumption that because a large number of homebuilders now are using undocumented labor, that that’s the only way to build homes, I think again betrays a fundamental —”
“The country is much bigger. The need is much bigger,” Garcia-Navarro protested. “I’m not arguing in favor of illegal immigration. I’m asking how you would deal with the knock-on effect of your proposal to remove millions of people who work in a critical part of the economy.”
“Well, I think that what you would do is you would take, let’s say for example, the seven million prime-age men who have dropped out of the labor force, and you have a smaller number of women, but still millions of women, prime age, who have dropped out of the labor force. You absolutely could re-engage folks into the American labor market,” Vance replied.
Garcia-Navarro floated the argument that illegal immigrants had to be allowed to stay because Americans wouldn’t do those jobs.
“People say, well, Americans won’t do those jobs. Americans won’t do those jobs for below-the-table wages. They won’t do those jobs for non-living wages. But people will do those jobs, they will just do those jobs at certain wages,” Vance argued. “We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris’s border policies. I think it’s one of the biggest drivers of inequality.”
