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Harris responds to GOP critics over not having biological children: “This is not the 1950s anymore”
Vice President Kamala Harris declared Sen. JD Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” to be “mean and mean spirited,” and said recent comments by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ about her for not having biological children reveal that Sanders doesn’t understand “a whole lot of women out here.”
Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, addressed the Vance-prompted national discourse over whether women — and national leaders — have biological children on the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast with host Alexandra Cooper, which posted Sunday.
Cooper asked Harris what she makes of Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comments — comments the Republican nominee for vice president has tried to explain, but from which he hasn’t backed down. In 2021, Vance said the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Since then, Vance has suggested that politicians without biological children don’t have a stake in the nation’s future.
“I just think it’s mean and mean spirited,” said Harris, who has two grown stepchildren. “And I think that most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength is not based on who you beat down. The real measure of a strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”
Echoing Vance, Sanders last month also critiqued Harris for not having biological children. Last month, Sanders — who was White House press secretary under former President Donald Trump — said, “my kids keep me humble” and, “unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” Cooper, whose podcast has nearly 1 million subscribers on YouTube, asked Harris how that made her feel.
“I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris said of Sanders. “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 really important for women to lift each other up. You know, I’ll tell you Alex, one of the things that I have really enjoyed about where the discussion has gone, one of the places it’s gone, we have our family by blood, and then we have our family by love. And I have both. And I consider it to be a real blessing. And I have two beautiful children, Cole and Ella, who call me Momala. We have a very modern family. My husband’s ex-wife is a friend of mine, you know?”
“And also, I’ll tell you, look, I’m a child of divorced parents,” Harris continued. “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—to form a relationship with the kids and then walk away from that relationship. I just, my own experience tells me that you know, children form attachments and you really want to be thoughtful about it. And so I waited to meet the kids. And they are my children. And I love those kids to death. And family comes in many forms, and I think that, increasingly, you know, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore. Families come in all kinds of shapes and forms. And they’re family nonetheless.”
Harris said there are “so many forces that come in very different ways that are just trying to make people feel small and alone.”
Some Republicans have criticized Vance for his “childless cat lady” comments, particularly former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
“It’s not helpful. It’s not helpful,” Haley told CBS “Face the Nation” last month.
In recent presidential election cycles, women have consistently broken for Democrats, while men as a whole have broken for Republicans. That appears to be the case in this election cycle, too. Among likely voters in August, 56% of women said they planned to vote for Harris, while 54% of men said they planned to vote for Trump.
The “Call Her Daddy” interview is one of several interviews Harris has recently conducted that will roll out this week. She spoke to 60 Minutes’ Bill Whittaker in an interview that will air Monday night as part of their election special, which for decades has featured both presidential candidates but Trump backed out after previously indicating he would be on the show. Harris will also be on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The View.”
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The northern lights made an incredible display over much of the United States on Thursday — and might make a return appearance Friday night.
The aurora borealis was visible as far south as Florida on Thursday. Photos show the sky lit up in red and purple, even in some brightly-lit areas like New York City and Chicago.
The strong geomagnetic storm that created such a show has subsided, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but some parts of the U.S. may again see the northern lights tonight. Here’s what to know.
Roy Rochlin / Getty Images
Where will the northern lights be visible tonight?
The northern lights will be visible for parts of the northern U.S., according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center’s aurora forecast. The aurora will be visible over much of Canada and Alaska, but the northern lights can also be seen from as far as 620 miles away if the conditions are right, NOAA says.
Parts of Idaho, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin may be able to see the lights Friday night. On the East Coast, the aurora might be visible in northern New York and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. Areas of Maine may also see the northern lights.
The lights will appear to the north when it’s dark outside. If you can’t see them with the naked eye, they may be visible through a phone camera or other device.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
What time will the northern lights be most visible?
The northern lights are most visible just after sunset or just before sunrise, NOAA said. The aurora is not visible during the day. Dark, cloudless skies with little artificial light provide the best viewing experience.
Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Why have the northern lights been so visible lately?
Over the last several months the sun has been incredibly active, unleashing a series of coronal mass ejections from its surface, CBS Boston reported. That’s resulted in multiple visible aurora shows.
The geomagnetic storm responsible for Thursday’s stunning skies is now subsiding, CBS Boston reported. That means there will be less chance of seeing the aurora on Friday, but there may be more opportunities in the future.
Shawn Dahl, a forecast coordinator with the Space Weather Prediction Center, told CBS Boston that the northern lights have been so intense lately because of where the sun is in its 11-year solar cycle. Dahl said that “we are in the midst of solar maximum.”
Heather Kepple
“What that means is the sun is now this twisted-up mass of strong magnetic fields, and some of these are so localized and intense they reveal themselves as these sunspot groups,” Dahl said. “That’s the source of a bunch of the space weather storms that we’re looking for and predict.”
What causes the northern lights?
The northern lights are caused by interactions between the sun’s solar winds and the Earth’s protective magnetic field, according to NOAA. Those two phenomenons result in geomagnetic storms and increased geomagnetic activity.
The higher the geomagnetic activity is, the better your odds are of seeing the aurora. Increased geomagnetic activity means the aurora will become brighter, more active and visible farther from the poles of the planet, NOAA said.
Even moderate solar wind creates the aurora, NOAA said, so there is usually a weak aurora visible from somewhere on Earth. The best places to see these weaker auroras is close to the planet’s poles, like in Greenland or southern Argentina. If you see the aurora near the North Pole, it’s nicknamed the northern lights. The same phenomenon near the South Pole is called the southern lights.