In 2021, JD Vance, the former CNN commentator and Ohio senator who is now Donald Trump’s running mate, had a message for many journalists: You are “miserable and unhappy” because your biological clock has run out and you can’t start a family.
Vance appeared on the podcast of a group that is now allied with Project 2025 and discussed problems with journalism by stating that “one of the weird lies the elites have been told is that it's very easy to start a family when you're 45. Well, … God says otherwise.” He added:
Vance was appearing on the September 20, 2021, edition of the Moment of Truth podcast, which is run by the conservative organization American Moment. Around the time of the podcast, Vance was a member of the group’s board of advisors. He is currently a board member emeritus for the group.
American Moment is an organizational partner for Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led plan to provide staffing and policy priorities for the next Republican administration. Former President Donald Trump and his presidential campaign are heavily connected to Project 2025, with Vance writing the foreword to Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ upcoming book.
The September 2021 podcast featured Vance with American Moment President Saurabh Sharma and Chief Operations Officer Nick Solheim.
At one point during the interview, Vance attacked people “who can't have kids” because they “passed the biological period when it was possible” as “miserable” people who pursue “racial or gender equity” to give “their life meaning.”
JD VANCE: I wouldn't say that I have fully developed views on this. But to me, what it is is sort of a value system to replace the fact that they're all fundamentally atheist or agnostic. They have no real value system. Their only value system is: achieve in a very conventional way. And so the idea that somehow they're pursuing racial or gender equity is like the value system that gives their life meaning. Well, of course, they all find that that value system leads to misery, it leads to unhappiness. And so I think that what happens is like whenever you really pursue something, right?
Like let's say a doctor gives you a medicine to cure a disease and it doesn't work, right? The patient gets worse. Well you can conclude one of two things. Either the medicine isn't working or the patient was so sick that what they need is even more of the medicine that you originally prescribed. And I think the gender inequity stuff is like we need more of the medicine.
OK, clearly this value set has made me a miserable person who can't have kids because I already, you know, passed the biological period when it was possible. And I live in a 1,200 square foot 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 like racial and gender sensitivities on the rest of them. And like the reason that our society is broken is because these people don't think the exact way that I think.
Even though the way that I think has made me a miserable person, I just need to make more people think like that. So we're going to teach this in our schools, in our universities, even our elementary schools because once everybody agrees with me, then everything will finally come full circle and we'll have a happy, healthy society. I think that's like basically my theory for what's going on is they’re just having found that this medicine is making them sick, they're trying to impose it on the rest of society because society just needs more and more of the same medicine.
Later, co-host Nick Solheim asked Vance why journalists get things “so wrong? Like, why is it that there's this complete disconnect between them and reality?” Vance replied, in part, by claiming that it’s because their biological clocks have run out.
JD VANCE: I think it's a little bit about lashing out emotionally. I also think they've recognized that it's a very good weapon. Right? If you call somebody sexist, if you call somebody racist, that's a very easy way to win an argument in broken elite culture because it terrifies people. And so that's really what I think is going on.
Their lives are so disconnected and at the same time, they cannot admit it to themselves because it's too late. Because again, going back to the sort of weird lies that have been told, one of the weird lies the elites have been told is that it's very easy to start a family when you're 45. Well, human biology —
UNIDENTIFIED CO-HOST: Says otherwise.
VANCE: God says otherwise. Right? And so I really think that a core part of what's wrong with journalism in America is that you have a group of people who are dealing with their own, like, psychotic breaks. They're — I mean, if you think of the craziest journalists in American life, they're all in their late thirties or early forties. They have all reached this point where I think they recognize that their lives are miserable and unhappy, but they all feel like they've reached the point of no return. Right? And those are the most psychotic people. And unfortunately, we just live in a world where they have too much power. That's part of our job is to change it.
Vance’s remarks on the American Moment podcast are part of a larger record of remarks in the media in which he has attacked childless people — in particular, Vance has attacked Vice President Kamala Harris even though she has two stepchildren.
Media Matters reported yesterday that Vance appeared on Breitbart News in October 2021 and claimed that the left’s “next generation leaders,” including “the Kamala Harrises, they don't have kids. And so there's this weird way where they want to take our kids and brainwash them so that their ideas continue to exist in the next generation.”
During the American Moment interview, Vance also discussed Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Vance had written in September 2021 that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow. One of them is censored by the regime. The other promoted by it.”
Vance said that the “reaction” to that statement showed that “people are terrified of unconventional people, of people who don't think the thoughts that they're supposed to think. And that to me is like the opposite of what you would want in an elite. You would want an elite that's willing to think outside the box.”
The many examples of Jones’ “unconventional” thinking include pushing conspiracy theories about tragedies such as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the 9/11 attacks, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Jones has also recently been attacking Harris with sexist rhetoric, including calling her a “fleshlight.”
