Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance lied when he told CNN on Sunday that he never criticized people who don’t have children, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told anchor Dana Bash Sunday morning. “I don’t know which part of that is worse,” he said. “The lie that he just told when he says he never criticized people for not having kids because of course he very much did, including Kamala Harris and me and a lot of other people, millions of Americans in fact, who he disparaged as childless cat ladies.”
“And look, I’m a dog guy with two kids, but I’m one of millions of Americans he managed to insult there,” Buttigieg added.
He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Nation” shortly after the show aired an interview with Vance.
Bash asked about the conservative talking point that the Democratic Party’s policies “don’t contribute to the pursuit of family in this country” — an idea that Buttigieg soundly rejected.
“Let’s be clear, we’re the ones trying to get the Child Tax Credit expanded, and J.D. Vance couldn’t be bothered to show up in the Senate and vote for it,” he began. “And Republicans have blocked that from being expanded or it would be the law of the land right now.”
“So if you want to talk about promoting children, promoting family, put your money where your mouth is,” Buttigieg continued. “Same with a lot of other policies like, I don’t know, paid family leave, something that Tim Walz delivered in Minnesota, something that the Biden-Harris administration sought to deliver for the American people. Right now, Republicans are blocking it, but that’s something that they could certainly change their tune on.”
If the GOP has offered any indication of what family-focused policies might look like under a second Trump administration, Buttigieg added, it’s in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposals, which is “full of things that, in my opinion, are bad for families.”
“Let’s remember also that last time I checked, he doesn’t even think I should legally be able to have a family,” Buttigieg said. “Now, if you really got his way in his anti-marriage equality views, I don’t know if that means that he would want me and my husband to be forcibly divorced and separated from our children, or if he’d be satisfied just to have us lose legal protections like the ability to do our taxes together or visit them in a hospital. I don’t know exactly what his vision of us not having a family looks like, but I know that it’s not pro-family for me.”
Vance’s appointment as Trump’s running mate was met with opposition from GLAAD due to his support for legislation the organization believes goes against the best interests of the LGBTQ+ community. This has included his support for a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and his opposition to federal protection for gay and interracial marriages.
Elsewhere in the interview, Buttigieg expressed surprise that Vance is comfortable criticizing the military record of Walz, who retired after 24 years in the National Guard. “The fact that a veteran wants to go out and disparage another veteran just goes against certainly everything I learned during my time in service,” he explained.
“Look, I think in many ways it’s the exception that proves the rule. If the only thing that they can find about Tim Walz to complain about is to disparage his military record that was clearly honorable — remember, you can retire at 20 years. Tim Walz served for 24,” Buttigieg said.
Vance “seems incapable of talking about a vision for this country in terms of lifting people up or building people up or helping people out,” Buttigieg told Bash. “It’s always disparagement.”
“This is exactly the kind of politics that people are sick of,” he said. “I think it’s why people feel a sense of exhaustion when they look back to what the Trump era was like and have very little interest and appetite in going back to that politics of disparagement and destruction and insult.”
The “incredible amount of joy and lift” around the Harris/Walz campaign is “part of what accounts for the extraordinary momentum that we’re seeing as they tour the country,” Buttigieg continued.
You can watch the full interview with Pete Buttigieg in the video above.
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