Harris responds to GOP critics over not having biological children: "This is not the 1950s anymore"
Vice President Kamala Harris declared Sen. JD Vance's comments about "childless cat ladies" to be "mean and mean spirited," and said recent comments by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders about Harris not having biological children reveal that Sanders doesn't understand "a whole lot of women out here."
Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, addressed the Vance-prompted national discourse over whether women — and national leaders — have biological children on the popular "Call Her Daddy" podcast with host Alexandra Cooper, which posted Sunday.
Cooper asked Harris what she makes of Vance's "childless cat ladies" comments — comments the Republican nominee for vice president has tried to explain, but from which he hasn't backed down. In 2021, Vance said the country was being run 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." Since then, Vance has suggested that politicians without biological children don't have a stake in the nation's future.
"I just think it's mean and mean spirited," said Harris, who has two grown stepchildren. "And I think that most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength is not based on who you beat down. The real measure of a strength of a leader is based on who you lift up."
Echoing Vance, Sanders last month also critiqued Harris for not having biological children. Sanders — who was White House press secretary under former President Donald Trump — said, "my kids keep me humble" and, "unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble." Cooper, whose podcast has nearly 1 million subscribers on YouTube, asked Harris how that made her feel.
"I don't think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble," Harris said of Sanders. "Two, a whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life and children in their life. And I think it's really important for women to lift each other up. You know, I'll tell you Alex, one of the things that I have really enjoyed about where the discussion has gone, one of the places it's gone, we have our family by blood, and then we have our family by love. And I have both. And I consider it to be a real blessing. And I have two beautiful children, Cole and Ella, who call me Momala. We have a very modern family. My husband's ex-wife is a friend of mine, you know?"
"And also, I'll tell you, look, I'm a child of divorced parents," Harris continued. "And when I started dating Doug, my husband, I was very thoughtful and sensitive to making sure that until I knew that our relationship was something that was going to be real, I didn't want to—to form a relationship with the kids and then walk away from that relationship. I just, my own experience tells me that you know, children form attachments and you really want to be thoughtful about it. And so I waited to meet the kids. And they are my children. And I love those kids to death. And family comes in many forms, and I think that, increasingly, you know, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of shapes and forms. And they're family nonetheless."
Harris said there are "so many forces that come in very different ways that are just trying to make people feel small and alone."
Some Republicans have criticized Vance for his "childless cat lady" comments, particularly former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
"It's not helpful. It's not helpful," Haley told CBS "Face the Nation" last month.
In recent presidential election cycles, women have been moving more toward voting Democratic, while men have been trending more toward Republicans. That appears to be the case in this election cycle, too. Among likely voters in August, 56% of women said they planned to vote for Harris, while 54% of men said they planned to vote for Trump.
The "Call Her Daddy" interview is one of several interviews Harris has recently conducted that will roll out this week. She spoke to 60 Minutes' Bill Whittaker in an interview that will air Monday night as part of their election special, which for decades has featured both presidential candidates but Trump backed out after previously indicating he would be on the show. Harris will also be on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and "The View."