Getty Pictures
The official J.D. Vance Dangerous Press Tour retains on rolling this week, because the Republican vice presidential hopeful faces scrutiny over 2021 feedback he made bashing lecturers with out organic youngsters, together with American Federation of Academics president Randi Weingarten.
Already grappling with widespread backlash over one other 2021 jab calling Democratic politicians and voters “childless cat ladies,” Vance now should reply extra questions on additional feedback he made throughout an October 2021 political occasion for the Center for Christian Virtue. “So most of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so private about this, however they’re individuals with out youngsters making an attempt to brainwash the minds of our youngsters. That actually disorients me and disturbs me,” Vance mentioned in the course of the occasion. “Randi Weingarten, who’s the pinnacle of essentially the most highly effective lecturers’ union within the nation, she doesn’t have a single youngster. If she desires to brainwash and destroy the minds of youngsters, she ought to have a few of her personal and go away ours the hell alone.”
Weingarten is a lesbian, and introduced the public to her spouse, Liz Margolies, in 2007. Vance’s disparaging remarks, nonetheless, have been additionally inaccurate: Weingarten, believed to be the first openly LGBTQ+ president of a significant U.S. labor union, is stepmother to Margolies’ organic youngsters, and described herself as a “mom by marriage” final 12 months when subjected to similar attacks on her motherhood by Vance’s GOP colleague, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Nonetheless, Vance doubled down on, and falsely reframed, his personal remarks whereas being interviewed on the tarmac exterior the Trump-Vance marketing campaign jet this week, as CNN reported. “I didn’t criticize Randi Weingarten for not having youngsters, I criticized her for eager to brainwash mine,” Vance claimed. In the meantime, Weingarten responded in an MSNBC interview, calling his feedback “nonsensical” and “gross.”
A Viral Image Appears to Show Virulently Anti-LGBTQ+ VP Candidate J.D. Vance in Drag
Content material creator and podcast host Matt Bernstein posted the picture to social media over the weekend.
Vance has not particularly said in what means he believes Weingarten is “brainwashing” his youngsters. His assertion on the Heart for Christian Advantage occasion was made within the common context of “the ideology of the left,” which Vance characterised as “management[ling] what our youngsters be taught.” Equally obscure, but apocalyptic, rhetoric about Weingarten and the AFT has proliferated on the correct during the last a number of years. In a 2022 interview, former Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to as Weingarten “essentially the most harmful particular person on the planet” and alleged that lecturers’ unions are “the most certainly to take this republic down.” Different Republican traces of assault have included the accusation that Weingarten and the AFT puppeteered the U.S.’ COVID-19 coverage, which Weingarten flatly denied and referred to as “wild allegations.”
It’s nonetheless not clear what the Republican Celebration despises a lot about Weingarten specifically, although being a lesbian who helps public schooling could also be purpose sufficient. Weingarten has been a vocal opponent of conservative “faculty alternative” initiatives and constitution voucher applications, which have develop into a significant a part of the GOP coverage platform — together with nationwide campaigns to restrict LGBTQ+ rights and expression within schools. Vance’s feedback about Weingarten’s household and liberal “childless cat girls,” in the meantime, underscore extra anxieties inside his social gathering: Republicans are more obsessed with natalism than ever earlier than, but similar assaults on Vice President Kamala Harris’ household — i.e., her stepchildren with husband Doug Emhoff — have largely failed to connect with voters.
“I’m blessed to be a mother by marriage, however it’s irrelevant as to if any of us care about youngsters,” Weingarten wrote in an official AFT press release on Wednesday. “This week, as lecturers are digging into their pockets to pay for college provides and welcoming youngsters and fogeys into their lecture rooms, we should always all be celebrating the hope and promise of a brand new faculty 12 months, not trashing it with gross, ridiculous feedback like Vance’s.”
Get the most effective of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.
Initially Appeared on them.
