Vice President Kamala Harris responded to conservative criticism of her family and decision not to have children of her own with husband Doug Emhoff, whose two children she helped raise.
Harris’s remarks came in an interview released Sunday with the Call Her Daddy podcast that focused more on personal details about her life, career, and women’s issues rather than in-depth policy positions.
Host Alex Cooper read a quote from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) where she said her “kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”
Harris responded: “I feel sorry for her, and I’m going to tell you why. Because I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who one, are not aspiring to be humble, two, a whole lot of women out here, who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life, and children in their life, and I think it’s very important for women to lift each other up.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has faced backlash for past comments about “childless cat ladies.” Harris’s role raising her husband’s stepchildren rather than having biological children of her own has led to criticism from some Republicans.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I feel very strongly we each have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both,” Harris said. “I consider it to be a real blessing. And I have two beautiful children: Cole and Ella, who call me ‘Mamala.’ We have a very modern family. My husband’s ex-wife is a friend of mine. And also, I’ll tell you, I’m a child of divorced parents, and when I started dating Doug, my husband, I was very thoughtful and sensitive to making sure that until I knew that our relationship was something that was going to be real, I didn’t want to form a relationship with the kids and then walk away from that relationship.”
Abortion rights were also discussed, and Harris laid out some of her policy proposals that she says would make it more affordable to raise families, such as child tax credits for the first year, down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers, and medical debt not appearing on credit history.