Watch: Trump Fumbles Trying to Explain Why He Picked J.D. Vance
Donald Trump couldn’t come up with a single coherent explanation for why his supporters should also back J.D. Vance.
During an interview on Fox News Monday, host Laura Ingraham pushed Trump to explain his decision to tap Vance despite widespread criticism from Republicans, whom she readily dismissed as longing for “the days of open borders and perpetual war.”
“How do you expect to use him in this campaign, and what can you say to our viewers tonight to reassure them that this was an excellent pick?” Ingraham asked.
“Well, first of all, he’s got tremendous support, and he really does among a certain group of people—people that like families. He made a statement having to do with families,” Trump said. “He’s not against anything, but he loves family. It’s very important to him. He grew up in a very interesting family situation, and he feels family is good.”
INGRAHAM: What can you say to viewers to reassure them that JD Vance was an excellent pick?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 29, 2024
TRUMP: He's got tremendous support, and he really does among a certain group of people -- people like like families. He made a statement having to do with families. pic.twitter.com/5XNOoi4oXn
So, that’s Trump’s main selling point to the public on Vance: He was an “excellent pick” because he “feels family is good.”
Setting aside the fact that it’s a canned answer, Trump purposefully presented a gross mischaracterization of Vance’s incendiary comments.
While pronatalism is at the core of many of Vance’s outlandish policy ideas, the Ohio senator is currently facing the most backlash for his claim that Democrats are all “childless cat ladies,” which is presumably the statement Trump was referring to in his answer.
Vance later doubled down on this comment, saying that Democrats had become “anti-family,” and “anti-children.”
CNN reported Monday that Vance has made multiple disparaging remarks about childless Americans in the past, calling Democrats without kids “childless sociopaths.” On a podcast in 2020, Vance said that America’s “leadership class” was “more sociopathic” than those with children, resulting in a “less mentally stable” country.
The reason Trump actually picked Vance has nothing to do with families at all: According to Trump’s advisers, Vance was picked to appeal to white men.