In a new interview with Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at length about her relationship with her “very modern family,” opening up about helping to raise her stepchildren and being a child of divorce herself.
In a wide-ranging interview that touched on Harris’ plans to protect abortion rights and support young college graduates, the vice president ended up opening the sit-down by speaking at length about her own family.
Cooper brought up the comments made by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a rally held by former president Donald Trump in September—again criticizing the vice president for not having biological children, despite her role as stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, Cole and Ella Emhoff.
ADVERTISEMENT
“So, my kids keep me humble,” the Arkansas governor told the crowd. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” she continued to a chorus of boos from Trump supporters.
“There are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris told Cooper. “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.”
Sanders’ comments echoed those from Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, who has faced criticism for comments in the past calling Democratic leadership “childless cat ladies.”
Harris told Call Her Daddy that Vance’s comments were “mean and mean-spirited.” However, the Democratic nominee said she “enjoyed” the direction the conversation has gone since the controversial comments, and used the opportunity to discuss her relationships with her family.
“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 Mamala. We have a very modern family.” Harris also called her husband’s ex-wife, Kerstin Emhoff, “a friend of mine.”
“I love those kids to death,” Harris said later. “This is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of shapes and forms and they’re family nonetheless.”
She also said her experience growing up with divorced parents influenced how she approached her relationship with her stepchildren.
“I’m a child of divorced parents 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 gonna be real,” Harris continued. “I didn’t want to form a relationship with the kids and then walk away from that relationship.”
Cooper, who described her show as focused on “supporting women and talking about women and lifting women,” also used her time with the vice president to ask about the Harris campaign’s focus on abortion policy and even her career as a prosecutor focusing on violence against women.
Harris said it was important to support women’s ability to achieve “economic freedom” in order to prevent domestic violence. “When a woman, and in particular if she has children, if she is economically reliant on her abuser, she's less likely to leave because most women will endure whatever personal physical pain they must in order to make sure their kids have a roof over their head or food.”
Harris gave her thoughts on why even voters in Republican-leaning states like Kansas and Ohio have consistently voted to strike down further abortion restrictions when put on the ballot.
“People who felt very strong about that they are anti-abortion, anti-abortion are now seeing what’s happening and saying, Hmm, I didn't intend for all this to happen,” Harris said.
The vice president and the host spoke at length about the case of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old mother in Georgia who died in 2022 after doctors in the state delayed treating an infection she developed from a rare side effect from at-home abortion medication.
Thurman went to the hospital, but doctors in Atlanta waited 20 hours to operate on her because the procedure was criminalized after Roe v. Wade was overturned, ProPublica reported.
Harris also attacked Republicans, such as Trump, who say they support abortion in cases where the life of the mother is at risk.
“You know what that means in practical terms? She’s almost dead before you decide to give her care. What? So we’re gonna have public health policy that says a doctor, a medical professional, waits until you’re at death's door before they give you care? That's outrageous that anybody would be saying that that is acceptable policy.”
