CNN host Wolf Blitzer challenged Republican Senator JD Vance of Ohio on Friday to determine how Republicans can call themselves the “party of law and order” when their likely presidential candidate was just found guilty on 34 counts.
Blitzer also pushed back against the MAGA senator’s claim that Donald Trump’s supporters are “not violent people,” pointing out that a far-right mob attacked the U.S. Capitol in protest of Trump’s election defeat in 2020.
Vance, one of Trump’s vice presidential candidates who attended the ex-president’s hush money trial, has led Republican outrage over the guilty verdict. “While the outcome of this trial can certainly be appealed, it is a disgrace to our justice system that such measures become necessary,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
Appearances on CNN Within politics On Friday afternoon, the former Trump critic repeated the ex-president’s complaints about the indictment by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which accused Trump of falsifying business records related to payments to a porn star in order to silence her before the 2016 presidential election.
“The whole point of this trial was to give the media and the Democrats the opportunity to say exactly that,” Vance explained. “This was never about justice, this is about putting ‘convicted felon’ all over the airwaves when in reality Donald Trump is only guilty of sitting in the courtroom in a political sham trial.”
Blitzer, however, quickly began to refute Vance’s arguments, pointing out that Trump was convicted by a jury approved by the ex-president’s defense, while Vance cited Judge Juan Merchan’s small contribution to President Joe Biden’s campaign and the judge’s daughter’s work for Democrats to portray the trial as “politics disguised as justice.”
From there, Vance accused Biden of staging the trial to throw his political opponent in jail, to which the veteran CNN anchor reminded the senator that it was a state case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. However, the Ohio congressman noted that a member of “Biden’s Justice Department” had joined the New York Attorney General’s office before the indictment, suggesting that this proved a connection to the White House.
“This definitely has something to do with Joe Biden,” Vance claimed. “In addition, Robert De Niro showed up at a Biden campaign rally on the day of the jury deliberations.”
After further back-and-forth over the validity of the prosecution’s argument, which Vance called a “literal breach of the papers,” the vice presidential candidate echoed the ex-president’s rhetoric, warning that Americans will “wake up in a banana republic” as a result of the conviction.
Finally, Blitzer confronted the Hillbilly Elegy Author on the Republicans’ tough stance on crime in the wake of the guilty verdict.
“What has happened to the Republican Party as a party of law and order?” the experienced CNN anchor asked simply.
“We are the party of law and order,” Vance replied.
“This former president has been convicted 34 times for violating the law,” Blitzer replied.
The senator continued to invoke his description of the case as a “political sham prosecution” and again referred to Merchan’s donation to Biden, which Blitzer said was just $15. Vance was then asked if he feared MAGA supporters would resort to violence following Trump’s conviction.
“Oh, not at all. Donald Trump’s supporters are not violent people. We live in a country of 330 million people, of course some people are going to do bad things,” he replied, before urging Republicans to donate to Trump’s campaign.
“Were not Trump’s supporters involved in the violence on January 6 at the US Capitol?” Blitzer countered.
“Wolf, certainly some people were violent, but I don’t think the majority of Donald Trump’s supporters are violent, because on January 6th a few people were violent,” Vance said, shrugging.
Of the hundreds of rioters charged and convicted for their participation in the January 6 insurrection, 210 defendants have stated in court that they “responded to calls from Donald Trump when they traveled to Washington and joined the violent attack on the Capitol.”
Before ending the tense but cordial interview, Blitzer brought up Trump’s recent complaint that his conviction shows the United States has been gripped by fascism. “You don’t think we live in a fascist state, do you?” Blitzer asked.
“I think what happened in New York, if you applied it to all 50 states, would be the definition of fascism: throwing political opponents in jail,” Vance responded. “Thank God it only happened in New York and not in the rest of the country.”
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