Ever since he was selected by Donald Trump to be his Vice Presidential running mate, things have not gone well for Ohio Senator JD Vance. He’s been criticized for lacking charisma, shunted off to give speeches at sparsely attended rallies, and slammed for his anti-abortionist views.
Until Trump selected him, Vance was little known on the national stage. Comments he made at political events or on podcasts rarely made headlines at the time he made them. Now they’re coming back to haunt him.
Vance has already taken flack for comments he made in 2021 in which he said Democrats were like a group of “miserable”, “childless cat ladies”.
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He has since claimed these comments were taken out of context.
Now, a clip from a podcast interview from 2020 has gone viral. Vance was talking to Eric Weinstein on the Portal podcast. Vance mentioned that the mother of his wife, Usha, took a sabbatical from work as a biochemist to help care for their newborn son. The older woman moved in with the couple for a year.
“It makes him a much better human being,” Vance says of his son’s interaction with his grandparents.
Weinstein says that traditionally “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female in theory,” is to help raise children. Vance says “Yep.”
— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) August 14, 2024NEW VANCE AUDIO: In an interview from 2020, JD Vance agrees with a podcast host who says having grandmothers help raise children is “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.”
He also agrees when the host says grandparents helping raise children is a "weird, unadvertised… pic.twitter.com/W4KwHfZyw2
Weinstein goes on to suggest such hands-on help from a grandparent is perhaps a “weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.”
“Yeah,” Vance says again. “It’s in some ways the most transgressive thing I have ever done against the hyper neo-liberal approach to work and family.”
Vance spokesperson issues denial
As the re-surfaced comments blew up online, Vance’s team reacted with an angry denial about the “post-menopausal” comments.
“The media is dishonestly putting words in JD’s mouth—of course he does not agree with what the host said,” Vance’s spokeswoman, Taylor Van Kirk, told the Daily Beast.
“JD reacted to the first part of the host’s sentence, assuming he was going to say: ‘that’s the whole purpose of spending time with grandparents’. It’s a disgrace that the media is lying about JD instead of holding Kamala Harris accountable for her policies that caused sky high prices for groceries and everyday necessities, a disaster at the southern border, and a historic drug overdose epidemic.”
Hmmmm… as far as the internet was concerned Vance clearly appeared to be agreeing with the host. And it did not go down well.
This dude is disgusting. He wants women as free labor until we drop. No thanks. Stop demanding women be caregivers. I don’t want that job.
— Jeanie “woman, demon, slayer of pinecones” (@Kissmyazz24) August 14, 2024
So once we're done being useful as breeders our purpose is to raise the children of other breeders. Wow
— Karen DenBleyker (@kdneedles) August 14, 2024
It’s cool that there was a normal way to make this point (“I think it’s good for young parents to be near their parents to help with the kids”) and he chose the strangest way to say it instead
— Branche° (@Branche_SC) August 14, 2024
A postmenopausal female walks into a bar, the bartender says, "the cat ladies are waiting for you in the corner booth."
— R.Scott Tipton, MPA (@rscotttipton1A) August 14, 2024
So, value of women = their contribution to GDP. Got it professor Maybelline
— Michael Datsun (@fuller_sean) August 14, 2024
That's weird. Not sure his couch is going to be able to care for his grandkids.
— Lynnez 🌊♥️🇺🇸 Rib Gone Rogue (@Lynnenallo) August 14, 2024
This is totally normal (not weird behavior at all) for two dudes to want to talk about postmenopausal women and how it only happens so as to help men with raising their own children that they are too busy to take care of themselves.
— Jake Broe (@RealJakeBroe) August 14, 2024
JD Vance needs to slither back under the rock he came out of.
— Phillip-USA (@phillip_USA_) August 14, 2024
“Normal things”
Although the podcast interview comes from 2020, Vance continues to raise eyebrows with his comments about women and their rights.
Yesterday he appeared on Fox News. Talking to Laura Ingraham, he dismissed concerns that some suburban women were choosing not to vote Republican over the issue of abortion rights. Vance said they were more concerned with “normal” things.
“ I don’t buy that, Laura. I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about. Right? They care about inflation. They care about the price of groceries. They care about public safety in the streets where their kids play. Look, as Donald Trump has said, he wants the American people at the state level to decide abortion policy.”
It’s pretty normal to respect a woman’s right to make her own damn health care decisions. https://t.co/bGHaOkF01J
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) August 14, 2024
Since Biden announced he was quitting, Kamala Harris has closed the gap in opinion polls with Donald Trump. Recent polls showed Harris narrowly ahead in three swing states.
Many political commentators say that women who were previously not enthused about voting for either Trump or Biden are now thinking about voting. In some states (such as Florida), abortion rights will also be on the ballot. This is again likely to bring out people more likely to vote for Harris.
Walz agrees to debate
In other Vance-related news, Governor Tim Walz yesterday agreed to a televised debate with Vance. CBS News invited both VP picks to a debate in New York City and offered them four potential dates (September 17, September 24, October 1, and October 8). Walz posted to social media that he’d be happy to debate on October 1.
Vance today responded, agreeing to debate on that date.
See you on October 1, JD. https://t.co/ssi0FdseN9
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) August 14, 2024
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