On Wednesday, another batch of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees sat for their Senate confirmation hearings, which allowed them to join what has become an alarmingly crowded club over the past year: federal judicial nominees who refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, or that (heaven help them) Trump lost it.

In previous hearings, when Democratic senators have asked about who “won” in 2020, Trump nominees have parroted the same carefully workshopped talking point, which is that Congress “certified” Biden as the winner, and that he served four years as president. You do not need to be a lawyer to understand how this sleight-of-hand works: Every nominee knows that publicly characterizing Biden as the “winner” would result in Trump hopping on Truth Social and pulling their nominations within minutes. By answering Democrats’ questions about 2020 in terms of what Congress did, nominees are saying something that is both technically correct, and also fully consistent with Trump’s beloved stolen-election conspiracy theories.

This time, though, Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal phrased the question a little differently, asking the nominees on Wednesday’s panel about which 2020 candidate won the popular vote. His strategy, presumably, was to try to get around the standard “Congress certified” framing, because regardless of who you think the “rightful” winner of that election was, it is an objective, easily verifiable fact that when all the ballots were counted, Joe Biden had about 7 million more of them.

In news that I am sure will astonish you, no one was willing to answer this question any more honestly. “In 2020, President Biden was certified and served four years as president,” said Andrew Davis, a Texas district court nominee. “Joe Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election and served four years,” said Anna St. John, a Louisiana district court nominee. “President Biden was certified the winner and served four years,” said John Shepherd, an Arkansas district court nominee.

Texas district court nominee Christopher Wolfe, who had the misfortune of having to answer last, opted to power through this moment of temporary humiliation as quickly as possible. “Same answer, senator,” he said.