Remarks by Ohio senator emerge as Trump attempts to soften VP pick\u2019s \u2018childless cat ladies\u2019 comment<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JD Vance reportedly admitted to Republican donors this weekend that Kamala Harris<\/a> was a threat and a \u201csucker punch\u201d, the latest in a string of recent and past remarks that have been seen to undermine the campaign and that led Donald Trump to try to soften his vice-presidential pick\u2019s description of Democrats as \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The leaked remarks about Harris were themselves quickly followed on Tuesday by the publication<\/a> of a previously unseen video of Vance telling an interviewer that not having \u201ckids in your life\u201d makes \u201cpeople more sociopathic\u201d and makes the US a little bit \u201cless mentally stable\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou go on Twitter, and almost always, the people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don\u2019t have kids at home,\u201d he added in the video, which was released by the Kamala Harris campaign and is undated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recorded audio of Vance telling donors at a fundraiser in Golden Valley, Minnesota, on Saturday that \u201call of us were hit with a little bit of a political sucker punch\u201d when the president, Joe Biden, withdrew from the 2024 race was leaked to the Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden, because whatever we might have to say, Kamala is a lot younger,\u201d the newspaper reported Vance saying. \u201cAnd Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The comments contradict Trump\u2019s own statements on Harris since Biden withdrew from the race. Earlier this month Trump told Bloomberg<\/a> that<\/a> he did not think switching out Biden for Harris \u201cwould make much difference\u201d, adding: \u201cI would define her in a very similar [way] that I define him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday evening, in an interview with Fox News\u2019s Laura Ingraham, Trump said<\/a> he thought Harris was a \u201cworse candidate\u201d than Biden. And just over a week ago, the Washington Post reported that Vance himself\u2002told reporters<\/a> that there was in effect no difference in running against Biden versus Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the audio of Vance was leaked on Monday evening, Trump was on Fox News, defending Vance\u2019s past comments that have recently resurfaced about \u201cchildless cat ladies\u201d, saying that Vance was simply trying to show how much he values family life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vance\u2019s 2021 comments criticizing Harris and other Democrats<\/a> as \u201ca bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives\u201d resurfaced after Trump selected the Ohio senator as his running mate earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The comments prompted a backlash<\/a> and warnings from some political strategists that they could cost the Trump campaign valuable votes in a close election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe grew up in a very interesting family situation, and he feels family is good. And I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything wrong in saying that,\u201d Trump said in an interview on Fox News with Laura Ingraham that aired on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump also said in the interview that he did not place a higher value on people with families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know, you don\u2019t meet the right person, or you don\u2019t meet any person. But you\u2019re just as good, in many cases, a lot better than a person that\u2019s in a family situation,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, the lawyer Doug Emhoff, and Vance, who was brought up in Ohio, was largely raised by his grandmother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other videos<\/a> of Vance criticizing Democrats and the Democratic party and those within it have surfaced in recent days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one newly surfaced interview with Fox News in 2021, identified by the progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America<\/a>, Vance said that the \u201cleft feels comfortable experimenting on children with the lockdowns, the mask mandates and just their general approach to public policy, because they\u2019re increasingly the party in the movement that doesn\u2019t have kids\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He later added: \u201cI think basically what we\u2019ve done is that we\u2019ve allowed the Democrats to become dominated by a bunch of sociopaths who don\u2019t care about America\u2019s children. And we just need to call it out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n