During last week's vice presidential debate, the Democratic candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, asked his Republican opponent, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio), whether Donald Trump lost his 2020 bid for re-election. Because Vance did not want to choose between contradicting reality and contradicting his running mate, he dodged that question, instead posing one of his own: "Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?"
Although that pivot was puzzling, it rescued Vance from an uncomfortable situation while highlighting the vice president's disregard for freedom of speech and Walz's alarming misconceptions about the First Amendment. Yet Vance himself seems confused about the constraints imposed by that constitutional guarantee, and so does Trump.
