Senator JD Vance of Ohio is making headlines again because of his previous negative comments about people without children, especially teachers.
In a resurfaced 2021 audio clip circulating online, Vance, the running mate of Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump, can be heard speaking to the Center for Christian Virtue, a political group in Ohio, saying that teachers without children “confuse and really disturb” him.
“Randi Weingarten – the president of the most powerful teachers union in the country – doesn’t have a single child,” Vance said. “If she wants to brainwash children and destroy their brains, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone,” said the father of three biological children. “…That really baffles me. And it really worries me.”
Weingarten is married to Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and describes herself as “an in-law.” According to The Advocate, she is the stepmother to two daughters.
Weingarten responded on Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter: “Disgusting! JD Vance’s comments are sad and offensive to millions of modern families and school teachers, including Catholic nuns, none of whom should be held accountable for their family choices.”
In a July 2021 interview with Fox News, when Vance was running for the U.S. Senate, he said the country was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are unhappy with their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and therefore want to make the rest of the country unhappy, too.”
“It’s just a basic fact. When you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.”
Harris has two stepchildren with her husband, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff. And Transportation Secretary Buttigieg and his husband Chasten welcomed twins just weeks after Vance’s interview.
This article originally appeared in the Fort Smith Times Record: Vance ‘worried’ about teachers without children of their own
