Vice President Kamala Harris finally shot back at the GOP’s criticism for her not having biological children, calling the comments “mean-spirited,” in an interview on the wildly popular podcast “Call Her Daddy.”
“This is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of forms,” Harris told host Alex Cooper on Sunday.
The Vice President was specifically referencing comments from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, R-Ark., who said in September that her three children “keep her humble,” while Harris has “nothing to keep her humble.”
“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. “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.”
While Harris does not have biological children, she is the stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s children, Cole and Ella. She’s frequently said how much being a stepmother means to her and that’s its one of the most important roles in her life.
“We have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both,” she told Cooper.
Trump campaign adviser Bryan Lanza condemned Huckabee Sanders’ comments in a CNN interview, calling the role of stepmother a “tough job.”
Huckabee Sanders backtracked in a statement on Sunday, claiming that she was not criticizing Harris for not having children, but for her policy stances.
“I would never criticize a woman for not having children, the point I was making and that Kamala Harris confirmed by her own admission is that she doesn’t believe our leaders should be humble, which explains her arrogant claim that she alone can fix our nation’s problems after spending the last four years making them worse,” she wrote.
Republican vice presidential candidate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, himself faced harsh criticism earlier this year for having called Harris and other women in politics “childless cat ladies.”
Harris said the GOP’s attacks on childless women were “mean-spirited.”
Call Her Daddy is the most listened to podcast among women in the United States, according to Spotify. Much of the 40-minute interview focused on women’s health and reproductive rights, a topic Cooper has covered in previous episodes.
Harris, who has done relatively few media appearances since becoming the Democratic nominee, is set to appear on various shows this week including, “60 Minutes,” Howard Stern’s “The View,” and “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert. Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will appear on Jimmy Kimmel on Monday.
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