George Stephanopoulos had Yale Law School graduate, hillbilly, one-time Trump hater and now Vice President, J.D.  Vance on his ABC television show, This Week. It was an interesting interview, to say the least.

At the 9 minutes mark, Stephanopoulos asked Vance whether immigration Czar Tom Homan, who was recorded taking $50,000 in cash from the FBI, kept the money or gave it back. The balance of the interview had Stephanopoulos repeating the question as Vance did everything possible not to answer. Eventually, the interview was ended without Vance answering the question.

From the perspective of the MAGA faithful, Vance “beat” Stephanopoulos and “won” the interview.

For the most part, spin and deflection are the politician’s stock in trade. Ask a question that reflects poorly on the administration and spend the next few minutes hearing nothing remotely responsive to the question. Then the interview moves on to another question, another subject. That didn’t happen here, where Stephanopoulos refused to let it go and persisted in asking the question.

Did Vance “obliterate” Stephanopoulos by deflecting and evading the question? Was Stephanopoulos wrong to “waste” five minutes of a vice president’s time asking a question that he both refused to answer and was not, according to Vance, asking the question Vance wanted to answer?

In the past, there tended to be some level of shame for refusing to answer a question that was both clear and addressed a matter of public interest. On the day when the Defense Department demands acquiescence to its new rules that news outlets allowed into the Pentagon only write approved scripts, thus controlling the information to be provided to the public to limit it to only Pentagon approved narratives,** and following upon a Senate Oversight Committee questioning the attorney general who refused to answer any unpleasant question posed,*** is it satisfactory that government officials refuse to answer questions like this?

At what point does the public, even those who support Trump, expect an answer to serious questions about serious matters? Or is evasion and deflection fine, as long as it’s for your tribe to avoid the embarrassment of admitting impropriety?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.

**Of the media outlets working inside the Pentagon, only One America News has agreed to sign Hegseth’s pledge. Even Newsmax refused to sign.

***In response to questioning by Democratic senators, Pam Bondi replied with prepared quips to evade and insult the senators, and failed to answer any questions, ranging from Homan’s taking the $50,000 in cash to the legal rationale for National Guard deployment to Trump’s directive to her, meant to be private but publicly twitted instead, to indict his enemies “NOW.”