'Damning non-answer': Vance refuses to acknowledge Trump lost the 2020 election

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance refused to acknowledge that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election during the vice presidential debate Tuesday and downplayed the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which injured more than 140 law enforcement officers.

He also declined to say whether he would seek to challenge the results of this year's election.

Toward the end of the debate, Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz asked Vance, a senator from Ohio, to affirm that Trump lost the last election.

“Did he lose the 2020 election?” Walz asked.

"Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance replied before he pivoted to press Walz about censorship on social media.

"That is a damning non-answer," Walz said. "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."

Walz noted that the reason former Vice President Mike Pence — who was the target of "hang Mike Pence" chants from pro-Trump rioters who invaded the Capitol in 2021 — wasn't on the debate stage is that he refused to overturn the election on Trump's behalf.

Trump faces federal criminal charges in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election through what a federal grand jury alleged was a conspiracy to delegitimize the election with a campaign of "unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing" claims that special counsel Jack Smith alleges he knew were false. Trump has pleaded not guilty, but while some Trump supporters connected to the attack have conceded they feel like gullible “idiots” for having believed Trump's lies, Trump has continued publicly to repeat his falsehoods about the election. Trump once again refused last month to admit he lost.

Walz said that it was important to be “honest” about what happened on Jan. 6 and that Americans should not engage in “revisionist history” about the attack.

"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," Walz said Tuesday.

“This has got to stop. It’s tearing our country apart,” he said.

"I don't think we can be the frog in the pot and let the boiling water go up," Walz continued. "Sometimes you really want to win, but the democracy is bigger than winning an election."

Asked by one of the debate moderators whether he would challenge the election results this fall, even if the results are certified in every state, Vance first said he wanted to talk about the future. He then added: "Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those 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."

Vance also said Trump asked “protesters” to “peacefully” go to the Capitol in his speech on Jan. 6 and that Trump “left the White House” on Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated.

When Walz asked him to acknowledge that Trump lost the election, Vance again said he wanted to talk about the future but then pivoted back to the 2016 election, comparing Trump's false election claims to Democrats who protested Trump's win over Hillary Clinton in 2016, referring to factual claims of a Russia-based campaign to boost Trump in that election on social media.

Vice President Kamala Harris wants to “censor people who engage in misinformation,” Vance continued, saying that was “a bigger threat to democracy than anything we’ve seen in the last four years, in the last 40 years.”

Walz said that while the candidates agreed on some issues Tuesday night, "we are miles apart on" Jan. 6. "This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen, and it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say — he is still saying he didn't lose the election," he said.

Trump fans who believed Trump's lies went onto Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 armed with firearms, stun guns, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bike racks, batons, a metal whip, office furniture, pepper spray, bear spray, a tomahawk ax, a hatchet, a hockey stick, knuckle gloves, a baseball bat, a massive “Trump” billboard, “Trump” flags, a pitchfork, pieces of lumber, crutches and even an explosive device.

About 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the attack, and federal prosecutors have secured more than 1,000 convictions, along with prison sentences ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison, for a Proud Boy leader convicted of seditious conspiracy. Trump gave the Proud Boys a massive boost by telling them to "stand back and stand by" during a 2020 debate, and federal prosecutors said members of the group wanted to be "Donald Trump's army."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com