10
Loading video...
By Martha McHardy
US News Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Former President Donald Trump has defended JD Vance after he referred to some women in the Democratic Party as "childless cat ladies."
"He's not against anything. He loves family. It's very important to him," Trump said of his running mate in a Fox News interview on Friday.
"He grew up in a very interesting family situation, and he feels family is good. And I don't think there's anything wrong in saying that," Trump added.
Read More on Politics
Vance detailed his upbringing in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy as well ashis close relationship with his female family members as his father left when he was a child.
The former president also repeated accusations that the Democrats had misrepresented Vance's comments.
...
"You know, you don't meet the right person, or you don't meet any person. But you're just as good, in many cases, a lot better than a person that's in a family situation," Trump said. "But they took it and they spun it differently."
Newsweek has contacted Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign via email for comment.
Vance, whom Trump has nominated as his running mate, drew criticism last week when a 2021 interview resurfaced, in which he told the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country was run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too."
"It's just a basic fact that if you look at Kamala Harris, [Secretary of Transportation] Pete Buttigieg, AOC [Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?" he said.
'Driving Away Voters in Drones'
Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, Doug Emhoff. On Thursday, Emhoff's ex-wife slammed Vance for his comments, pointing out that Harris has been a co-parent of their children for years.
"She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present," Kerstin Emhoff told CNN. "I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it."
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also hit back at Vance's comments.
"The really sad thing is, he said that after Chasten [Buttigieg] and I had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey," Buttigieg, who now has twins he adopted with his husband in 2021, said Tuesday on CNN's The Source.
"He couldn't have known that, but maybe that's why you shouldn't be talking about other people's children," he said in the interview.
The Harris campaign addressed Vance's comments directly in an email heralding World IVF Day. Vance "is driving away voters in droves, insulting couples struggling with infertility who are sounding off on his disparaging comments about 'childless' women," the Harris campaign wrote.
Vance's family members have attempted to fend off criticism for his remarks.
"Women have been forefront throughout JD's life," his aunt, Lori Meibers, said in a statement to Newsweek. "It's disgusting that the Democrats and media are attacking him in this way."
"As you know, he was raised without a father figure. My mother, Bonnie Vance—or Mamaw, as we know her—his sister, Lindsay, and myself all coalesced around him to raise him ourselves," she added.
His sister, Lindsay Lewis, also hit back at criticism, telling CNN that her brother is a "testament to the women in his life." She added that attacks on him for his remarks are "vile."
On Friday, Vance defended his remarks. "I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this, Megyn, but the simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way," he told host Megyn Kelly.
"It's not a criticism of people who don't have children. I explicitly said in my remarks, despite the fact the media has lied about this, that this is not about criticizing people who, for various reasons, didn't have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child."
Vance has also dismissed the comment as "sarcasm," adding that he has "nothing against cats," according to The Washington Post's Patrick Svitek.
Harris Has Stopped Using 'Crazy Laugh'
Elsewhere in the interview, Donald Trump said his opponent Kamala Harris had stopped using her "crazy laugh."
"She got rid of the laugh, I noticed. I haven't seen that crazy laugh. She's crazy. That's the laugh of a crazy person," Trump told Fox News.
"Somebody convinced her: Don't laugh under any circumstances."
Harris has often faced criticism for her laugh. At a rally in Michigan on July 20, Trump told the crowd: "I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts. "
Following his remarks, a clip resurfaced in which Harris explained the origins of her laugh.
"Let me just tell you something: I have my mother's laugh," she told the Drew Barrymore Show in April.
"And I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen, drinking their coffee, telling big stories with big laughs."
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines