Former president Donald Trump is for the moment elated with his mercurial running mate JD Vance, but had been “unaware” of the extent of the Ohio Senator’s arch-conservative positions on women and families as his campaign vetted potential vice presidential candidates, according to a New York Times report.
The latest clip from Vance’s misogynistic playbook to make the rounds emerged Saturday: In a resurfaced podcast interview from 2021, the Republican nominee for vice president said professional women choose “a path to misery” by elevating their careers over having children.
“You have women who think that truly the liberationist path is to spend 90 hours a week working in a cubicle at McKinsey, instead of starting a family,” Vance said.
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In the same appearance, Vance also claimed that “traditional masculine traits” of boys and men “are now actively suppressed from childhood all the way through adulthood.”
The Times reported that, while Trump had been “troubled” more incendiary marks could be unearthed in the days following Vance's elevation to the Republican ticket, he has since grown so pleased with Vance’s aggressive campaigning that he has privately likened himself to legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, comparing his ability to scout political talent to the sporting acumen of the man who won five NFL titles.
(Lombardi, it should be noted, was a lifelong Democrat, champion of civil rights and a supporter of John F. Kennedy. Lombardi biographer David Maraniss previously told The Washington Post that the coach “had no use for flamboyant egos” and “would have seen Trump as a representation of a changing culture that left him uncomfortable.”)
Trump’s elation with that abrasive style, however, may only extend as far as the end of the Mar-a-Lago driveway. The Times noted polls show Trump’s running mate amplifies both his political strengths and weaknesses, leaving seemingly little room for electoral growth.
An August 6 NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that, since Vance joined the GOP ticket, his approval rating jumped double digits among the least educated voters but fell by even greater numbers among college-educated and independent women voters. Of white college-educated women, 61% said they had an unfavorable impression of Vance.
Democrats have seized on a narrative that the Ohio senator is, in their estimation, “weird.” The first and most notable clip of Trump’s running mate to be unearthed came in a 2021 Fox News interview, which circulated last month, showing Vance dismissing Vice President Kamala Harris as a “childless cat lady.”
In the same year, Vance also attacked childless teachers. “You know, so many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids, trying to brainwash the minds of our children,” he told a Center for Christian Virtue leadership forum.
Three Trump allies told the Times, however, that the former president has told Vance to power through attacks on his record and past statements, and that as an “attack dog,” Vance has “exceeded his expectations.”
