J.D. Vance’s casual misogyny seems to be a problem that just won’t go away for the Trump campaign.
The Republican vice presidential pick has ardently defended his position that childless adults should not hold positions of power as they don’t have a “direct stake” in the future of the country, deriding Democratic Party leaders as “childless cat ladies.” But even some of the most extreme far-right networks can’t get behind Vance’s toxic comments.
In a newly unearthed interview with Newsmax in 2021, the Ohio senator continued to double down on his radical take on childless Americans.
“I realized that we’re being ruled by a childless elite,” Vance said. “It’s not just that they don’t have kids. Of course a lot of people don’t have kids for different reasons. It’s that they’re proud of the fact that they don’t have kids, they think it’s bad if they have kids, they think it’s bad for the environment. They’re proud of their abortions. They shout their abortions from the rooftops.
“That is a dangerous place to live as a country,” he added.
But that didn’t sit right with at least one network host.
“J.D., so I’m curious, I take a little bit of a different stance from you and Steve, respectfully,” said Jenn Pellegrino, referring to her co-host Steve Cortes. “There’s about a quarter of the population that chooses not to have kids. Perhaps some of the hardest-working, most career-driven people that you’ll find.
“Are we not painting this group perhaps with a broad brush? Because not everybody is of that mentality, of not doing it for climate change. Some people just choose a little bit differently,” Pellegrino said. “Perhaps society is changing a little bit.”
But Vance wouldn’t be swayed. “Look, you do not have a future as a country unless you have the next generation,” he said. “So much of what’s going on on the left especially is they’ve become obsessed with the idea that having a kid is an old-fashioned thing.
“If you don’t have kids, who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?” he continued. “Who’s going to care for our elderly? Work the jobs that are necessary? If we don’t have children, then the answer is nobody.”
Watch the exchange below:
Unearthed video: JD Vance said childless elites make the U.S. “dangerous.” It was too much for a Newsmax interviewer. https://t.co/6GmXLpudot pic.twitter.com/T32IBHl5VX
— Media Matters (@mmfa) September 3, 2024
