:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/F4Y34PLMOLR4OWO7JKEX3KZZXI.jpg)
Speaking at a campaign event with former president Donald Trump on Tuesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) took a dig at Vice President Kamala Harris for not having biological children.
Sanders, who was White House press secretary under Trump before she was elected governor of her home state in 2022, said at the event in Flint, Mich., that being a mother was her most important role.
“My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” Sanders said, while also mispronouncing Harris’s first name.
The comment drew a quick backlash from Harris supporters, who noted that the vice president has stepchildren with her husband, Doug Emhoff. The second gentleman’s first wife, Kerstin Emhoff, responded to Sanders on social media with a reference to her two children, Harris’s stepson and daughter.
“Cole and Ella keep us inspired to make the world a better place. … Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, ALL families. That keeps you pretty humble,” Kerstin Emhoff wrote on X.
Trump campaign adviser Bryan Lanza also criticized Sanders’s remarks, telling a CNN panel Tuesday night that he was “blessed to have a stepmother” help raise him.
“So, I found that comment to be actually offensive. I don’t know what more to say about that. I’m disappointed in Sarah [for] saying that,” Lanza said on the network. “I’m sure I’m going to get criticism from the campaign, but I have to sort of defend somebody who’s a stepmom. It’s a tough job. People step into that role. It’s usually a difficult dynamic … and we should reward that and sort of speak of that in a very high tone.”
The Trump campaign declined to respond when asked about Sanders’s remarks. Representatives for Sanders and the Harris campaign did not immediately respond Wednesday morning.
The backlash echoed furor over resurfaced comments from GOP vice-presidential nominee JD Vance dismissing Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they’ve made” and suggesting that childless people do not have a “direct stake” in America’s future. Vance has since said that Democrats are misinterpreting his comments, which he made during his Senate run in 2021.
However, many Democrats have been reclaiming what was intended as an insult, posting pictures of their support for Harris and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz with pictures of their pets. In recent days, pop megastar Taylor Swift and music legend Linda Ronstadt announced their endorsements of Harris with pictures of their cats.