Jon Lovett, who worked as former President Barack Obama‘s speechwriter, ridiculed the Donald Trump campaign’s rollout of running mate JD Vance in the latest episode of his podcast Lovett of Leave It.
Trump announced Ohio Senator Vance as his vice presidential pick earlier in July, ahead of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. Republicans view Vance as a staunch conservative who can help Trump bring out the conservative base in November, but the Trump campaign has faced criticism for the selection over Vance’s past remarks about women and families.
In 2021, Vance said the country is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, so they want to make of the country miserable too.” The remarks reemerged after he became Trump’s running mate, leading to a wave of backlash from those who view the remarks as insulting toward childless women.
Trump on Monday defended Vance in an interview with Fox News‘ Laura Ingram.
“He made a statement having to do with families. That doesn’t mean that people that aren’t a member of a big and beautiful family with 400 children aren’t, it doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t have… He’s not against anything. He loves family,” Trump said.
Trump’s defense sparked mockery from Lovett.
“That’s what you want. You want the top of the ticket going out there and trying to salvage the reputation of the VP candidate. Do you know how bad your rollout has to be going, that they have to send out Donald Trump to clean up your stupid insults? Your stupid insults are so bad that Donald Trump is going out there to try to humanize you to fix it. That’s bananas,” he said.
He compared Trump’s defense to “sending Godzilla to clean up Eric Adams’ New York.”
“Sure, more people are excited to see him. But he’s not going to un-destroy midtown,” he said.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email.
Actress Jennifer Aniston was among those critical of Vance’s remarks.
“I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States,” she wrote on Instagram. “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her too.”
On Friday, Vance defended his remarks in an interview with Megyn Kelly, saying: “I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this, Megyn, but the simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way,” he told host Megyn Kelly.
“It’s not a criticism of people who don’t have children. I explicitly said in my remarks, despite the fact the media has lied about this, that this is not about criticizing people who, for various reasons, didn’t have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”
Vance has also dismissed the comment as “sarcasm,” adding that he has “nothing against cats.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
