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By Martha McHardy
US News Reporter
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Former National Security Adviser John Bolton slammed JD Vance on Friday night after he referred to some women in the Democratic Party as "childless cat ladies."
"I think these comments by Vance are really the 2024 counterpart of Hillary Clinton's famous statement in the 2016 election where she called Trump's supporters deplorables," he said during a CNN interview with Kaitlan Collins.
In 2016, Clinton, who was running on the Democratic ticket to be president, referred to some of Donald Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables." She later apologized for her remarks, but many have speculated that they may have cost her the election.
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"I mean if politicians can't learn it's one thing to attack your opponent. It's another thing to attack your opponent's supporters and that's just not a way to win friends and influence people. I don't think Vance learned the lesson that Hillary Clinton unfortunately for herself, learned in 2016," continued Bolton, who was national security adviser under Trump.
"That's going to hurt Trump as you get closer to the election."
Newsweek has contacted representatives of Vance for comment via email.
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Vance drew criticism this 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 [Vice President] 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.
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.
However, his 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."
Following his remarks, which he has since defended, rumors emerged that Trump may be reconsidering his choice of running mate, with former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, who was fired after 10 days on the job, saying that Vance "may or may not make it to November."
"JD, I think, stands for 'Just Dull,' so, he is not doing well on the stump for Donald Trump. He's hurting him. The memes on social media are killing him," Scaramucci told CNN's Kaitlan Collins. "The net negatives are terrible for the vice president."
"It's just a question of how many 'Scaramuccis' JD is going to last," he added. "We've got the shot clock on right now."
Collins asked Bolton—who has written that Trump is "unfit" to be president in a new edition of his memoir released in January—to respond to Scaramucci's remarks during his Friday night interview.
"I mean, I think he's stuck with him now," Bolton said of Trump and Vance.
In a statement shared with Newsweek on Tuesday, Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, denied reports that Trump was second-guessing his choice of running mate.
"President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either nonexistent sources or individuals who have no idea what's going on," Cheung said.
"Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy."
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