Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, responded to Senator JD Vance’s resurfaced “childless” remarks and the subsequent backlash on Sunday.
Vance, former President Donald Trump‘s running mate, has recently faced criticism for saying the United States is run by “childless cat ladies” during an interview with Fox News in 2021 while running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as examples.
“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, so they want to make of the country miserable too,” he said.
However, Vance has continued to defend himself amid the backlash. Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance, said in a previous statement to Newsweek, “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. The only childlessness we should be talking about are the childless parents who lost their kids to the murderous thugs and deadly fentanyl coming across Kamala’s southern border.”
Last Sunday, President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris to become the Democratic Party‘s nominee.
In a Sunday interview on CBS News’ Face The Nation, Graham, a Trump ally, spoke about Vance following the fallout of his “childless” remarks.
When asked by host Robert Costa if it’s “a mistake for Senator Vance to keep talking about Americans who don’t have children when it comes to a national campaign” Graham responded by admitting he does not have children as he doubled down on his support for Vance and Trump.
“Right, yeah. I don’t have children. But I’m going to vote for JD and Trump because I think we’ll be safer and more prosperous and more secure. I want to end the Biden-Harris debacle,” the senator said. “You should never say anything to hurt anybody’s feelings, but when you look at all these interviews by JD, he was talking about how the Democratic Party has abandoned the traditional family. So this idea of trying to marginalize JD and make him some kind of bad person is not going to work. He’s not a bad person, he’s a good person.”
Graham’s comments come after Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late GOP Senator John McCain, took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to point out that Graham and Republican Senator Tim Scott, another Trump ally, do not have children.
“Just curious why JD Vance isn’t concerned about Senators like Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott who are both childless and unmarried and their commitment to America? They’re in positions of high power in the government – does JD think they should have less voting power?” she asked.
McCain previously warned about the damage Vance’s remarks have made, adding on X on Thursday: “I have been trying to warn every conservative man I know, these JD comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian. This is not who we are.”
Meanwhile, Vance has continued to receive backlash leading to reports emerging of Trump second-guessing his choice amid the senator being met with bad press. However, Trump’s campaign and even Trump himself have denied such reports.
Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, denied reports that Trump was regretting picking Vance as his running in a statement to Newsweek on Tuesday.
“President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. And any reporting to the contrary is nothing but ridiculous fake news from either nonexistent sources or individuals who have no idea what’s going on,” Cheung said.
It comes as former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer said on MSNBC‘s The Weekend on Saturday morning that Trump and Vance are “playing defense.”
“The country, the voters, the democratic base is reinvigorated and that’s evidenced by what we’ve seen since last Sunday. It hasn’t even been a week,” Setmayer—CEO and co-founder of The Seneca Project, a bipartisan super PAC that focuses on women’s issues and has endorsed Harris—said Saturday. “In this timeframe, we’ve got Donald Trump and MAGA [Make American Great Again] and JD Vance playing defense. They’re talking about couches and cat ladies.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
