It’s well documented that Donald Trump Jr loves JD Vance and was instrumental in getting him on the ticket. They are two peas in a pod in so many ways, even beyond the beards. Junior is less intellectually able but that’s not saying much. But JD apparently respects him anyway. A new fact check on JDs lies about Kamala Harris indicate that some of them come directly from Junior. For instance:
“She has said things like, ‘it’s reasonable not to have children over climate change.’ I think that’s the exact opposite message we should be sending to our young families.”
— Vance, interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Aug. 11
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This is false. Vance made this comment as he tried to explain 2021 remarks that Harris was one of those “childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives and they want to make the rest of country miserable, too.” (Harris has two stepchildren.) To Bash, he said: “I criticized Kamala Harris for being part of a set of ideas that exists in American leadership that is anti-family. I never, Dana, criticized people for not having kids. I criticized people for being anti-child.”
That’s when he offered the claim that Harris once said “it’s reasonable not to have children over climate change.”
There is zero evidence thatHarris said that. Instead, Vance appears to be channeling a misleading Facebook post by Donald Trump Jr.
“WATCH: Resurfaced video shows Kamala Harris suggesting that young people should not have children due to climate change,” TrumpJr. wrote on July 27. “She calls climate anxiety ‘the fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children.’”
Trump Jr. clipped a small section and then mischaracterized it. Here’s the full statement, made at an event at a community college in Reading, Pa., on Sept. 19.
Because young people — and, in particular, young voters — said, “We are going to direct and decide what is the direction of our country.” … Because young people said, “We’re not leaving it to other people to decide how we’re dealing with the climate crisis” —
You know, I’ve heard young leaders talk with me about a term they’ve coined called “climate anxiety.” Right? Which is fear of — of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children, whether it makes sense for you to think about aspiring to buy a home because what will this climate be?
But because people voted, we have been able to put in place over a trillion dollars in investment in our country around things like climate resilience and adaptation, around focusing on issues like environmental justice.
In sum, she was characterizing “climate anxiety” and noted the Biden administration was taking steps to mitigate it.
That he said this in response to his fatuous “childless cat ladies” comment that has gotten him into so much trouble makes it all the more absurd.
Vance’s latest persona, the one that was so impressive to Trump when he spotted him on Tucker Carlson’s show bootlicking like a champ, was largely formed by following the likes of Trump Jr online and then cultivating them as he launched his political career. They are not very bright so it’s not hard to do.
The question is how bright Vance really is that he made the bet that being closely associated with Trump and MAGA are great career moves? I’d say it was a bad one that Vance will struggle to shake off when he makes his next shape shift.