Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance once railed that a lesbian who is a stepmother and chair of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is a person “without children, trying to brainwash the brains of our children.”
Vance, who holds well-documented and controversial views about people without biological children, makes these comments in a resurfaced audio clip from a 2021 Center for Christian Virtue forum.
“Our conservative view is that parents and families should determine what children learn and what values they grow up with,” said Donald Trump’s vice presidential candidate.
“You know, it’s so many leaders on the left, and I hate to get so personal about this, but it’s people without children who are trying to brainwash the minds of our children. It confuses me, it really worries me.”
The junior senator from Ohio had previously stated that people with biological children should be given more votes than those without. She described women who have not given birth to children themselves as “childless cat ladies who are unhappy with their own lives and the choices they have made and therefore want to make the rest of the country unhappy too.”
Childless Americans have “no physical connection to the future of this country,” he further claimed.
Vance’s “childless cat lady” reference was aimed at Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, Cole and Ella, and to left-wing New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
But he does not limit the insult “cat ladies” to women.
Also in 2021, he took aim at a renowned economics professor, tweeting: “Paul Krugman is one of many weird cat ladies who have too much power in our country. We should change that,” The Independent reported.
Pete Buttigieg, who made history by becoming the first openly gay U.S. Cabinet secretary and adopted twins with his husband in 2021, was also branded “childless.”
At the Democratic National Convention earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg said in response: “Anyone who has said that if you don’t have children, you have, quote, ‘no physical commitment to the future of this country,’ knows, Senator, when I was sent to Afghanistan, I didn’t have any children.”
“Many of the men and women who walked with me outside the barbed wire fence didn’t have children either. But let me tell you, our commitment to the future of this country was pretty damn physical.”
In the recently leaked audio recording, Vance also called out Randi Weingarten, who has been president of the AFT since 2008.
“Randi Weingarten, the head of the most powerful teachers union in the country, doesn’t have a single child. If she wants to brainwash children and destroy their brains, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone,” he said.
In response to the clip, Weingarten posted on X/Twitter that his comments were “an insult to millions of modern families and teachers, including Catholic nuns, none of whom should be held accountable for their family decisions.”
She then posted a statement on the AFT website saying parents, children and teachers did not want “political attacks in our classrooms.”
They want us to engage and encourage students and create a safe and welcoming environment, especially as we begin the new school year, Weingarten continued.
“It seems Vance is missing an empathy gene, thank God he’s not a teacher. He doesn’t understand that you don’t have to be a parent to care about children, our neighbors, our communities and our country,” she wrote.
“While Vance plays the culture war card, which is nothing more than a destructive form of politics, AFT educators across the country are working on solutions: giving away books to children – 10 million so far – implementing free breakfast and lunch programs in schools, advocating for community colleges and social services to help all children succeed academically, and just this year creating career and technical education pathways in advanced manufacturing and healthcare to prepare and train students for well-paying jobs and careers.
“If he had ever represented Ohio, Vance would have seen this work in action from Cleveland to Medina to Toledo to New Lexington to Cincinnati.”
Teachers “want what children need,” and although she “was fortunate enough to be a mother through her marriage,” this was “irrelevant to whether any of us care about children,” she insisted.
“As teachers dig deep into their pockets this week to pay for school supplies and welcome children and parents into their classrooms, we should all be celebrating the hope and promise of a new school year, not denigrating it with disgusting, ridiculous comments like those made by Vance.
“Vance should be spending his energy helping educators and school staff support students. Instead, he is making it harder for teachers to teach and harder for kids to learn. Shame on JD Vance.”
This is not the first time that Weingarten’s status as a parent has been questioned by right-wing circles.
In April 2023, hardline Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene sharply attacked Weingarten during a special session of the House of Representatives discussing school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“People like you have to admit that you are just political activists, not teachers, not mothers, and not doctors,” said the Georgia congresswoman.
Weingarten hit back, saying, “What (Greene) did is exactly that dehumanization that you see in autocrats and people who don’t want to solve problems. The unfortunate thing is that it’s so corrupt and mean-spirited… I can take it, I’m a public figure.”
“I felt like I was sacrificing myself for the team. But the vile, homophobic nature of it was pathetic and the undermining of families was pathetic.”
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