One thing that can be said about politics in this modern age of instant access to archived video, is that plausible deniability ain’t what it used to be.
How J.D. Vance must long for those days when video of his remarks doubling down about Alex Jones being more credible than Rachel Maddow would be shared with his target audience only, then locked away in some news outlet’s vault – where it could only be viewed again by some one with a subpoena.
Such is not the case today, as Vance found out after lying last night about those remarks in his debate with Tim Ryan:
“Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) called out Republican rival J.D. Vance for saying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was a credible source of information and then lying about it during Monday night’s combative debate between the two U.S. Senate candidates.
Ryan noted that Vance, who won the GOP primary with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, had been supportive of the conspiracy theorist. Jones was recently ordered to pay nearly $1 billion to family members of the people killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting for claiming the Connecticut massacre was fake.
“We are running for the United States Senate. This is the highest office you could get in this country except for president,” Ryan said. “And he’s running around backing these extremists. The most extreme people in the country. A guy who denied Sandy Hook. He’s like, ‘No, he’s credible.’”
Vance insisted: “This is a complete fabrication. I never said that.”
“You’re on tape, man,” Ryan shot back. “It’ll be like 30 minutes and we’re all going to know you’re lying.”
And it did not take even 30 minutes, Twitter video maven MeidasTouch almost instantaneously produced the damning evidence of Vance’s original tweet making his Jones/Maddow equivalence, and also video interview where he defended it:
Favorite line: It'll be like 30 minutes and then we're all gonna know that you're lying.
— The dude (@realTanon) October 18, 2022
Mine too!
Mr. Vance is learning that it is much harder to lie about what you said than it used to be, now that everyone has access to your original statement.
I'm sick and tired of the lying Republican candidates like JD Vance, MTG & Walker! Don't they know that there are videos to prove every lie? Give me honest representation like @TimRyan ! I voted for him today!💕
— jen grimes (@jengrimes8) October 18, 2022
💯 💯 💯
— RayWoodson (@RWoodson20) October 17, 2022
You don’t say. No, you did say.
😏😏😏
Let us hope that Ohio voters send J.D. back to from which ever rock he climbed out from under on election days.
Lord knows we have more that enough GOP liars in D.C. as it is…
“Let’s go to the videotape”. I love it. Vance should shut up and go back where he came from.
They count on the stupidity & lack of any morality in their voters.
And now let’s go vote for????