Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the GOP vice presidential nominee, says he wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election -- had he been in then-Vice President Mike Pence’s position on Jan. 6, 2021 -- until states where then-President Donald Trump and Republicans falsely claimed there was massive electoral fraud submitted “alternative slates” of Electoral College electors.

There is no provision in the Constitution for such a scenario and Trump allies are being prosecuted in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia for attempting to replace those states’ Electoral College votes for now-President Joe Biden with ones for Trump. The alleged fake electors scheme is a key part of the racketeering prosecution against Trump and several allies in Georgia and in a federal criminal case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith in Washington.

“I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we had,” Vance said on the venture capitalist podcast “All-In” on Monday in Los Angeles. “I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates. That's what I would have done. Again, I've said that publicly many times.”

The Ohio Republican was asked by host Jason Calacanis, a tech entrepreneur, four times if he would have “certified the election” had he been in Pence’s position. Four times he declined to say he would. Pence, who was whisked away by Secret Service alongside his wife and daughter as a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as he oversaw the certification of the Electoral College vote, has said he will not support Trump in 2024.

“I think, in reality, that if Donald Trump wanted to start a nuclear war with Russia, Mike Pence would be at the front of line endorsing him right now,” Vance charged. “And fundamentally, the reason the old guard of the Republican Party hates Donald Trump, it's not because of January the sixth, 2021, whatever your views on it, it's because Donald Trump doesn't think that we should start stupid wars in foreign countries, and that's why they all hate him.”

Vance has long questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, for which no evidence of widespread issues or fraud has ever been found despite years of legal challenges and baseless accusations by Trump and his allies. Dozens of judges and local election officials across the country, including many Republicans, have affirmed the results as legitimate. 

In February, Vance said on ABC News “if I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there.” He said similarly in an interview with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat in June. 

“The important part is we would have had a big debate. And it doesn't necessarily mean the results would have been any different, but we at least would have had the debate in Pennsylvania and Georgia about how to better have a rational election system where legal ballots are cast,” Vance said on Monday, naming two states Biden won in 2020. “Let’s talk about Jan. 6 for the next 45 minutes. I’m sure it’s the most important thing going on in the country right now.”

Trump said last week he had “every right” to attempt to overturn the 2020 election after losing to Biden.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign slammed Vance for his comments, warning Trump and Vance are conspiring to seize “unchecked power.”

“The Trump-Vance ticket is spending the days before the debate ratcheting up their dangerous lies, the same lies that inspired a mob to attack the Capitol and try to overturn the 2020 election,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. “Donald Trump is telling us exactly what he will do if he wins – with the help of his Supreme Court justices, he’ll implement his Project 2025 playbook to give himself virtually unlimited, unchecked power and go after his political enemies. Trump’s campaign is solely about himself and his revenge and retribution.”

Trump has pledged to purge the federal bureaucracy and replace career civil servants with conservative loyalists, pardon those imprisoned for crimes committed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, and imprison his political enemies if he returns to power. In a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police last week, Trump encouraged police to “watch for voter fraud” so “we can keep the cheating to a minimum,” statements the Harris campaign said amount to “directing police officers to intimidate election workers and voters.”