Nearly nine years, one presidential term and three campaigns later, Donald Trump… rare honest words Since early 2016, it remains very true: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn't lose voters.”
Trump has never literally tested his claim, of course, but he has tried to overturn an election, been tried as a sexual abuser and financial fraudster, been convicted of 34 felonies, stolen top-secret documents, and said all sorts of outrageous things that would damn any other politician. And yet he retains enough voters to be a decent bet for reelection.
Opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
However, it turns out that Trump's Teflon superpower is not transferable. In the two weeks since he chose JD Vance—Trump's MAGA—as his running mate, Mini Me By almost every measure, Vance has been on the defensive for comments he made before and after becoming Ohio's junior senator just 19 months ago. By now you know what I'm talking about: comments about “childless sociopaths” of the ruling class, that is, the Democrats, and specifically “childless cat ladies” led by none other than Kamala Harris, now the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
It has been a disastrous debut, the polls confirm: Vance is the least liked vice presidential pick in five decades, and the first with a negative net approval rating.
What is interesting, however, is that Trump is also defensive about Vance's stupidity. This is a very unusual stance for him. If Trump had made the cat lady snap, it would probably have been forgotten soon, and all his other insults, idiocies and lies would have been forgotten. Trump does not explain his atrocities (when you explain, you are losing, the political saying goes) and he does not explain his atrocities. never apologizes. (That's probably why the sycophant Vance only has bentwith snide comments about how he “has nothing against cats,” exacerbating and prolonging the malicious controversy).
But there was Trump in prime time on Fox News On Monday night, the misogynist-in-chief responded to an otherwise fawning Laura Ingraham over her potential vice president’s misogynistic remarks. “She loves family,” Trump defended himself and explained. Well, Ingraham asked, what do you say to childless women? “I think they understand,” Trump replied meekly.
Yes, indeed. And so do their friends and family, men and women alike. But not in the way Trump suggests.
Maybe Trump’s Teflon is not only nontransferable, but has been damaged and scratched. Maybe, by choosing Vance as his partner, he is finally being held accountable, by proxy, for the outrageous rhetoric he has modeled. After all, Vance only started spouting nonsense after he decided to run for office and needed Trump’s support. To do so, the Yale Law School graduate, Silicon Valley investor, best-selling author and former Trump critic has transformed himself into a right-wing cultural warrior and Trump bootlicker.
I first met Vance in early 2017, when he came to the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics to promote his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” He cordially answered questions from David Axelrod, the institute’s founder, before a large audience. Afterward, a few of us went to dinner. My main memory is that Vance was not a fan of the newly inaugurated Trump and was clearly contemplating running as a Republican. As a fellow working-class Ohioan, I left thinking that Republicans in our home state would be lucky to have such a pragmatic, independent, self-made candidate — and an antidote to Trumpism. Ha.
Vance's now infamous rant about the catwoman reveals his shameful transformation and radical judgment disguised as facts and deep thoughts:
“In this country, we are effectively ruled by the Democrats and our corporate oligarchs, a bunch of childless women who are miserable with their own lives and the choices they’ve made. And so they want the rest of the country to be miserable, too. And that’s a basic fact.” he said“If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC… the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And what’s the point of us handing our country over to people who don’t really have a vested interest in it?”
(Buttigieg would announce just weeks later that he and his husband had adopted newborn twins, after repeated failed adoption attempts.)
It turns out that Vance's comments, made to then-host Tucker Carlson on Fox News in 2021, were just the latest in a long line of misleading social criticism in speeches and writings dating back to the publication of his book in 2016, criticisms that became increasingly nasty and partisan as Vance advanced in Republican politics. Indeed, Carlson said he invited Vance onto his show. because The Senate candidate had made a speech last week attacking “the childless left.”
After the show, Vance promoted his comments on fundraising emails“It won’t be easy to fight back – our childless opponents have plenty of time on their hands,” he wrote sarcastically in one of them. In his attacks on supposedly anti-family Democrats, Vance has typically labeled them “sociopaths” and named Harris as the chief avatar. Fact check: Harris years ago became a stepmother to her husband’s two children – and none other than his ex-wife, the mother of both, attests to Harris's credibility as a co-parent.
The fact that Vance's years of criticizing cat-owning, childless women wasn't just a throwaway line to the like-minded Carlson suggests one of two things: Either Trump knew the record and saw no problem with it, or his watchdogs didn't.
Be that as it may, here is the good news: Trump will eventually have to answer for abhorrent comments, even if they were not his, and he will possibly pay a political price. We can have hope.
@jackiekcalmes
