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Arkansas governor and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris for not having biological children during a town hall event with former President Donald Trump in Michigan on Tuesday night.
“My kids keep me humble,” Huckabee Sanders said in Flint. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble.”
Her comments echo those of Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, who has faced severe criticism for his previous comments about women who don’t have biological children.
Vance told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the US was being 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 — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC [Alexandria Ocasio Cortez] — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “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?”
Harris has two stepchildren and Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, adopted twins in August 2021.
Huckabee Sanders made the comments while describing how her daughter was getting ready for her first father-daughter dance.
“She wanted to come down the stairs, and her prince charming, my husband, to be there, and everything to be this magical, special thing,” Huckabee Sanders told the crowd. “So I'm sitting at the top of the stairs putting the finishing touches on Scarlett, making sure she's ready for the night of her life.”
“And as I'm talking to her, I'm telling her how proud I am of her, how thankful I am that God chose us to be her parents. How beautiful she is on the inside and out. And as I'm having this moment, I start to get a little bit emotional,” she added. “As my eyes fill with tears, my sweet daughter reaches up, pats my shoulder, and says, ‘It's okay, mommy, one day you can be pretty too.’”
“So my kids keep me humble,” she said. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble.”
“You would think after four years of straight failure, she would know a little humility,” she added before bringing Trump onto the stage.
The crowd booed at the mention of Harris.
Trump began the town hall event by being uncharacteristically nice towards the vice president, noting that they had had a “very nice” phone call following the most recent assassination attempt against the former president.
“I have to say that President Biden called me yesterday, [it] was ... a very nice conversation. I appreciated that he called about, you know what happened the other day,” Trump said.
“A little while ago, I got a very nice call from Kamala. It was very nice ... and we appreciate that, but we have to take back our country. We have to win. We’re going to win, and we’re going to make America great again,” he added.
Huckabee Sanders faced substantial criticism for her comments on Harris on Tuesday night, including from Kerstin Emhoff, the ex-wife of Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
“Cole and Ella keep us inspired to make the world a better place. I do it through storytelling. Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, ALL families. That keeps you pretty humble,” she wrote on X.
Former Democratic Kentucky Senate candidate Amy McGrath wrote: “You don’t have to agree in one’s political beliefs but why be personally cold? And why are you equating a fellow woman’s worth on whether or not she has biological children of her own?”
Author Ella Dawson called Huckabee Sanders – who is the daughter of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee – “a hack nepo baby with no humility talking smack about a black woman who worked her way up.”
