Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance again described women who prioritise their careers as “miserable,” and slammed Representative Ilhan Omar for her “ingratitude” as a Somali immigrant, on a right-wing podcast in 2021.
Vance made the comments, which were first reported on by The Guardian and Media Matters for America, on a newly resurfaced episode of a podcast produced by American Moment, a partner of the group behind the far-right policy plan known as Project 2025.
Asked why he viewed elite institutions like Yale University as “corrupt,” Vance reiterated his feelings about women who don’t have kids.
“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 and having children,” he said.
He continued: “What they don’t realise — and I think some of them do eventually realise that, thank God — is that that is actually a path to misery. And the path to happiness and to fulfilment is something that these institutions are telling people not to do.”
When a host asked him where “gender and racial resentment” comes from, Vance adopted the perspective of a hypothetical progressive.
“Clearly, this value set has made me a miserable person, who can’t have kids because I already passed the biological period when it was possible,” Vance said. “And I live in a 1,200 sq ft apartment in New York and I pay $5,000 a month for it. But I’m really better than these other people. What I’m going to do is project my racial and gender sensitivities on the rest of them.”
Vance also took the opportunity to take a dig at Omar while speaking about migrants, saying that the Minnesota Democrat has shown “a complete lack of gratitude” towards the U.S. and that she would be in a “craphole” if she hadn’t moved to this country.
“My family has been here, as far as I can tell, for nine, 10, many generations. I’ve never heard a person in my family express the ingratitude towards this country that Ilhan Omar does.”
“And look, this is the way the laws work. This country belongs to Ilhan Omar in the same way that it belongs to me,” Vance went on. “But, my God, show a little appreciation for the fact that you would be living in a craphole if this country didn’t bring you to a place that has, obviously, its problems, but has a lot of prosperity, too.”
HuffPost reached out to Vance and Omar but did not get immediate responses.
Vance’s comments about women who don’t have children are just some of the latest to be unearthed. Shortly after former President Donald Trump announced Vance as his running mate, an interview Vance gave to Fox News in 2021, in which he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life, got renewed attention. Vance has continuously defended the “cat ladies” remark.