Senator J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican who was nominated this month as a former President Donald Trumprunning mate, was criticized – and became a meme – for looking down on people who do not have children as “childless babes” in 2021.
But the 39-year-old senator has a documented, years-long history of describing childless people as immoral and inferior. And as Election Day approaches, these observations continue to resurface.
On Tuesday, HuffPost first reported in comments Vance made in May 2021 in an interview with the conservative outlet The Federalist, in which he was asked what he thinks Republicans can do to convince Americans to have more children.
“To be a little harsh about this, I think we have to go to war with the anti-child ideology that exists in our country,” Vance responded, adding that people who support women who prioritize their careers over having children are “sad, lonely”. , pathetic” people.
Vance’s comments on families and motherhood have come under particular scrutiny since her appointment. One 2021 speech he gave at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference – in which he said Vice President Kamala Harris is among the “childless hot women” of the Democratic Party and “has no physical commitment to the future of this country”, because he has no biological children – fueled extensive criticism.
In that same speech, Vance also said that childless Americans should not have “nearly the same voice” as their parents when voting.
“It’s just a basic fact: You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the Democrats’ entire future is controlled by people without children,” Vance doubled for far-right media figure Tucker Carlson days later. “And how does it make sense to hand over our country to people who have no direct stake in it?”
Comments resurfaced brought immediate reaction across the political spectrum, as the “childless hot women” who support Harris began to embrace the term.
In an apparent attempt at damage control, Vance said last week on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.” that he was being sarcastic and “has nothing against cats.”
In that July 26 interview, Vance acknowledged Harris She is the stepmother of two adult childrenand that Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, She adopted twins with her husband. But the Republican refused to directly apologize to people who can’t or don’t have children, instead criticizing the country’s low birth rate.
“People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not the substance of what I said. And the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry, is true,” Vance said, amplifying the “grand replacement theory” of white supremacy claiming, without evidence, that Democrats think they can “replace American children with immigrants.”
Vance has three children with his wife Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.
On the far-right “Charlie Kirk Show” podcast in March 2021, Vance also floated the idea of taxing childless people at a higher rate than people with children.
A spokesperson for Vance said the policy he supported was “basically no different” from the child tax credit, which Democrats support.
Between July 30th and August 8th, 2021, Vance gave three separate interviews with Fox News in which he said virtually the same thing, according to Media Matters: that Democrats are “experimenting” on children with COVID-19 mitigation measures like mask and vaccine requirements.
“If you want to experiment with someone else’s kids, Kamala Harris, AOC and so on, have your own kids – leave mine,” Vance told Fox News Primetime’s Tammy Bruce.
Vance, however, seems to have no problem criticizing the way people who have children choose to raise them. In a September 2021 speech to a Southern California high schoolthe Republican said parents should be more willing to staying in unhappy and potentially violent marriages for the sake of their children – and suggested that much of the blame for higher divorce rates lies with the American cultural and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when the fight for women’s bodily autonomy led to the now-overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade’s decision.
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution played on the American population, which is the idea that, ‘Well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, maybe even violent, but they were certainly unhappy.’ ‘” he said, according to Vice News. “And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to change their spouse like they change their underwear will make people happier in the long run.”
“Maybe it worked for moms and dads, although I’m skeptical,” he continued. “But it didn’t really work out for the children of those marriages.”
Vance too went on record supporting the federal abortion banand suggested to Spectrum News in 2021 that the public simply needs to reframe the idea of forcing a pregnant person carrying a child to term caused by rape or incest.
As a senator, Vance voted to block federal protections for in vitro fertilization. Instead, he supported the rival GOP bill, which does not require organizations or individuals to provide IVF services.
On Tuesday, CNN revealed that Vance described childless Americans in November 2020 on a conservative talk show as “sociopaths” who are “deranged.”
“There are just these basic cadences of life that I think are really powerful and valuable when you have children in your life, and the fact that so many people, especially in America’s leadership class, just don’t have that in their lives, you you know – I worry that this will make people more sociopathic and ultimately our entire country a little less mentally stable,” he said on the “Chris Buskirk Show.”
“You go on Twitter and almost always the most disturbed and psychotic people are the ones who don’t have children at home,” he added.
Spokespeople for Trump and Vance did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, including whether they believe the vice presidential candidate’s comments could harm the party’s chances with women who do not or cannot have children. Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk told CNN that he was just “talking about left-wing politicians” who support “anti-child and anti-family” policies.
“It is more than an insult that a scoundrel like JD Vance would attack millions of childless adults as ‘sociopaths’ and more likely to be ‘disturbed’ as part of his distorted and out-of-touch worldview,” the spokeswoman said. DNC voice Aida Ross said in a statement Tuesday, emphasizing concern that the vice presidential candidate would back up his rhetoric with political agendas.
“Like Donald Trump, Vance pursues a dangerous and wildly unpopular agenda that Americans want nothing to do with,” Ross continued. “And no amount of petty, hurtful insults from Vance will change that.”
