If you watched “This Week with George Stephanopolous” on Sunday and watched his interview with Rand Paul, you got a good idea of how the Republicans are planning to defend against the “Big Lie.”

Apparently, the best defense is a good offense.

George asked Rand a simple question, was he able to admit that the election was not stolen from President Trump.

Rand couldn’t do it.

Instead he pivoted to all the little elements of election fraud that allegedly still needed to be investigated.

This, despite the fact that there have been 86 electoral challenges and Trump lost all of them, with one very minor exception.¹

More importantly, in order to have a “stolen election” one would have to find so much voter fraud in disputed states (Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona) that you could overturn at least three of those five to change the election results.

Those states have been counted and recounted and certified and recertified, all five of them.

And (surprise, surprise!) Republicans have not alleged significant voter fraud in states that they won handily (or even states like New York and Massachusetts that the Democrats won handily).

So, as Rand kept avoiding and deflecting and doing the “whataboutism” dance — tactics that we’ve become very familiar with — and Rand became indignant that George was calling him out for the big lie.

• “I won’t  be cowed” Rand exclaimed.
• You’re saying that “everything I say is a lie” Rand lied (George had not said that).
• “Don’t insert yourself in the story!” Rand admonished.
• You should interview people on “both sides” of the issue, Rand insisted.

But there are not “two sides” to the big lie.

The best defense is a good offense will now (most likely) be the most salient part of the new Republican playbook.

1. The only exception was a Pennsylvania case in which a judge ruled that Pennsylvania judge ruled that voters had three days after the election to provide proper ID and “cure” their ballots.