Second gentleman Doug Emhoff on Friday slammed Sen. JD Vance of Ohio after it emerged that Vance had previously criticized Vice President Kamala Harris over not having children even though she is a co-parent to Emoff’s two children from a previous marriage.
“What he said was abhorrent. It was stupid, uninformed, and I think the reaction of not only the country but the world — I mean, look at what Jennifer Aniston said — it has touched a chord in a way that has just upset nearly everyone, because everyone’s family is their family ” Emhoff told former US Attorney Preet Bharara on Bharara’s podcast in an episode published on Friday.
Emhoff said that Vance’s remarks show he doesn’t appreciate the reality of a modern family.
“So you’re telling many people in this country and this world that they don’t matter,” Emhoff said.
“That the only thing that matters is this so-called, you know, old fashioned view of, you know, traditional quote unquote family,” he added. “And it is so abhorrent and I am so proud of Kirsten, who we love so much and we are so close and we have coparented, the three of us, so brilliantly and seamlessly and it hurt. It hurt my feelings. It was upsetting and I was so proud of our daughter, Ella, who supported her mother and her mothers.”
Emhoff’s daughter, Ella Emhoff, and his ex-wife, Kerstin Emhoff, had already teed off on Vance over previously coming after their family. Both Ella and her brother Cole were teenagers when Emhoff and Harris were married.
“These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” Kerstin Emhoff said in a statement to CNN. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
Vance’s comments have only exacerbated his struggle to introduce himself to the nation. He’s already set a record for being the most disliked major vice presidential nominee, even after a party convention.
Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said that the senator’s old remarks were being mischaracterized.
“Once again, the leftwing media have twisted Senator Vance’s words and spun up a false narrative about his position on the issues. The Democrats are in complete disarray with the most unpopular Vice President in history as their party’s nominee,” Van Kirk said in a statement to Business Insider.
In the 2021 interview, Vance, who went on to get elected to the US Senate, was railing against the next generation of Democratic leadership for not having children.
“We are effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs 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,” Vance told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Vance has stressed that he wasn’t poking fun at people who couldn’t have kids, but he did lump Harris into the group even though she has been a stepmother to Emhoff’s two children since they married in 2014.
On Friday, Vance tried to clean up some of his old remarks amid the backlash. He did not retreat from his belief that the Democratic Party is “anti-family.”
“Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats. I’ve got nothing against dogs,” Vance told former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly on her podcast. “People are focusing so much on the sarcasm, and not on the substance of what I actually said. And the substance of what I said Megyn, I’m sorry, it’s true.”
In selecting Vance, former President Donald Trump made clear that he was elevating someone who could lead the populist movement that has supplanted the traditional conservativism within the Republican Party.
