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Republican vice presidential contender JD Vancemade a case for himself and Donald Trump on Sunday as he faces another week of backlash around his insults regarding “childless cat ladies,” Democrats and Americans without children.
On Sunday, Vance was asked about his comments regarding traditional families in America and decisions made by people who do not fit that mold. It’s a point that has been viewed by the left as a signal to right-wing conservatives, given that both Vice President Kamala Harris and fellow Democrat Pete Buttigieg came to start families through “nontraditional” means: in Harris’s case, through marriage to a single father; in Buttigieg’s, through adoption.
CNN’s Dana Bash questioned the Republican candidate on State of the Union whether he viewed those families as legitimate.
“Of course,” Vance responded, before pivoting to claims that the Harris campaign was lying about the “context” of his remarks. Bash attempted to press him further, but he easily steamrolled past her follow-up.
“Dana, I was raised....one of the first people I gave a hug to after my RNC convention speech was my step-mom,” he said.
“So she’s not childless, then?” Bash asked.
“Of course she’s not childless,” the Ohio senator responded.
BASH: You called out Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. Harris has 2 stepchildren. Buttigieg has adopted twins. Do you recognize them as parents?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 11, 2024
JD VANCE: Of course
BASH: I wouldn't say "of course." You called them out by name. pic.twitter.com/9ImfN9qAD3
Speaking with ABC News, he elaborated further about his broader remarks regarding childless Americans and the “stakes” that they do or do not supposedly have in the country’s future. Vance, in his 2021 remarks to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, claimed that “we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it” while referring to Harris, Buttigieg and other Democrats — the same people he had just ridiculed for supposedly being “childless.”
“Do I regret saying it? I regret that the media and the Kamala Harris campaign has, frankly, distorted what I said,” Vance told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “They turn this into a policy proposal that I never made.”
The senator also discussed with ABC the Republican platform that has caused shockwaves - Donald Trump’s pledge to lead the “largest deportation operation in history” if elected president in November.
Vance and Trump have stated that they want to deport as many as 20 million immigrants living undocumented in the United States. Such an operation would have massive effects on the US economy, culture and communities.
On ABC, the senator was asked what that operation would look like — whether officers would be going door-to-door asking Americans for their “papers.”
"You start with what's achievable," Vance responded. "I think that if you deport a lot of violent criminals and frankly if you make it harder to hire illegal labor, which undercuts the wages of American workers, I think you go a lot of the way to solving the illegal immigration problem."
GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance, in a wide-ranging interview with @JonKarl, says the Trump campaign's mass deportation plan should “start with 1 million.” https://t.co/4rga61suQa pic.twitter.com/DYWK96crOY
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) August 11, 2024
“I think it’s interesting that people focus on, well, how do you deport 18 million people? Let’s start with 1 million,” Vance told ABC. “That’s where Kamala Harris has failed. And then we can go from there.”
Harris, now at the head of the Democratic ticket, has gone on the offense on immigration, as some Democrats have seen blood in the water.
Republicans, they reason, face an unprecedented weakness on the issue after a bipartisan border security compromise that would have given the US president authority to freeze the asylum system was tanked by conservatives earlier this year, on Trump’s behest.
The vice president, speaking in Arizona this weekend, told voters that her administration would pursue “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship” if returned to the White House next year with a Democratic majority in Congress.
