CLAIM: An X account affiliated with the Harris campaign posted that Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) said “he and Trump will ‘go to war against’ childless people, who he calls ‘sad, lonely, and pathetic.'”

VERDICT: False.

The Harris campaign took Vance’s comment out of context.

Vance said society must “go to war against the anti-child ideology in our country”:

They're lying. Here's what JD actually said & he's 100% right!

He said people who base their life's meaning only on work/education are "sad, lonely & pathetic."

He said we need to "go to war against the anti-child IDEOLOGY in our country," not childless adults.@CommunityNotes https://t.co/zlDxYlU3gm

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 31, 2024

Vance’s full remarks are below:

I also think, just to be a little stark about this, I think we have to go to war against the anti-child ideology that exists in our country. A few weeks ago — I know Twitter is not real life, but I forget even what caused it — but there was this ridiculous effort by millennial feminist writers to talk about why having kids was not a good thing, why they were glad they didn’t have kids, and even encouraging people who had had children to talk about why they regretted having children … which is, like, psychologically deranged to ask mothers on Mother’s Day to talk about why they regretted having children. And what it made me realize is that so much of what drives elite culture is mediocre millennial journalists who haven’t gotten out of their career what they thought they would, right?

And the thing is, everybody can be an exceptional mother and father. Not everybody can be an exceptional journalist at the New York Times, and not enough people have accepted that if they put their entire life’s meaning into their credential, into where they went to school, into what kind of job they have, if you put all of your life’s meaning into that, you’re going to be the sort of person who asks women to talk about how they regret having children. You’re going to be a sad, lonely, pathetic person, and you’re going to know it internally, so you’re going to project it onto people who have actually built something more meaningful with their lives.

I think we have to go to war against that ideology and the people behind it because we need to say to the people in my hometown, like, you know, I’ve seen this with, just to be honest, with with my sister. I love — my sister is just the best person. I love her to death. And, sometimes, you know, she’ll say things to me like, “You know, I just, maybe I should have delayed having kids; maybe I should have went to school; maybe I should have did this or that.” It’s like, Lindsay, you’ve been a great mom. Your children are happy. They’re healthy. You’ve taken good care of them. You’ve shown me. I mean, you know, she was my older sister. She took care of me a lot in a very chaotic home. People like my sister should not feel like the cultural messaging is “your life is inadequate.” The people who are sending that message should feel that their life is inadequate, and of course they do. They’re just too ashamed about it, to talk about it.

FAKE NEWS — @JDVance said we should go to war against the "anti-child movement" led by Democrats like Kamala, who told young people not to have kids because of climate change.

The JV Kamala campaign has NOTHING BUT LIES. https://t.co/Hr7f2AiLWx

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 31, 2024

Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.