On Tuesday, MSNBC Morning Joe hosted liberal commentators Molly Jong-Fast and Donny Deutsch and gave the former the floor to suggest that Senator and Republican Vice Presidential nominee J.D. Vance was “racist” and wanted “more white Children.” But in reality, Vance was in an interracial marriage and had three biracial children.
JD Vance has been receiving backlash after a clip of him went viral where he said parents have the biggest say in how a democracy should function.
Politico’s White House bureau chief, Jonathan Lemire began the discussion by sharing a statistic from Pew Research “47 percent of childless adults under 50 say they aren't planning on having any children.” He continued to state that many young people want to “focus on other things” or are concerned about the “costs associated with raising a child.”
Unsurprisingly, Lemire mentioned “Vance’s comments about childless Americans, childless cat ladies could be so politically damaging” to his career. Jong-Fast jumped in and quickly exclaimed – without evidence – that Vance’s comment had racial undertones:
Well so what’s interesting is this is this nativism that comes from an authoritarian playbook right that there – there need to be more white children, right? That's the idea that there is – you know this is about great replacement theory racism, right? This is what this is.
Jong-Fast failed to recognize that Vance, who married Usha Chilukuri, is a father to three biracial kids.
Regardless, Jong-Fast went on to say that we shouldn’t “misunderstand him for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of you now racist thing.” She then called his words an “attack [on] people for not having children” which she found “cruel.”
Adding on to what was previously said, Deutsch shared “you know it's just so interesting. We live in this new cycle of -- of politicians people say stupid things and the parade moves on.” But he professed that “this JD Vance parade is not gonna move on” because “there is just something that hit a nerve with people.”
Deutsch concluded “As I said, and you used the word cruel, I used the word cruel, that I think Vance, I don't know if Vance is here in the end. We will see.”
The X account of RNC Research posted a video of Jong-Fast’s comments and called her out for spreading lies. “JD Vance is the father of three biracial children with his Indian-American wife,” they said. Jong-Fact promptly untagged herself from the post and locked down her account.
RNC Research also called out Lemire for not pushing back on Jong-Fast.
Click "Expand" to view the transcript:
MSNBC Morning Joe
7/30/2024
7:53:13 – 7:55:05 AMJONATHAN LEMIRE: And in Louisiana, the daily advertiser reports that the United States birth rate is down as fewer adults want to have kids. According to a 2023 Pew Research survey, 47% of childless adults under 50 say they aren't planning on having any children. Many younger adults say they want to focus on other things instead and raise concerns about the state of the world and the costs associated with raising a child.
Some older adults say they don't have kids due to medical reasons or because they haven't found the right partner and Molly is – is -- the stats are there. More and more Americans choosing not to have kids which again emphasizes why JD Vance's comments about childless Americans, childless cat ladies –
MOLLY JONG-FAST: Right.
LEMIRE: -- could be so politically damaging.
JONG-FAST: Well so what’s interesting is this is this nativism that comes from an authoritarian playbook right that there – there need to be more white children, right? That's the idea that there is – you know this is about great replacement theory racism, right? This is what this is. So don't misunderstand him for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of you now racist thing.
So I would say yeah there -- it is certainly true and attacking people for not having children is really cruel, right, because some people can't have children, some people, you know, want to have children and you know – can’t you know --missed the window. So I do think it's -- it's really just a very terrible way to go after people.
DONNY DEUTSCH: Yeah. I—you know it's just so interesting. We live in this new cycle of -- of politicians people say stupid things and the parade moves on. This J.D. Vance parade is not gonna move on. There is just something that hit a nerve with people. As I said, and you used word cruel I used the word cruel, that I think Vance, I don't know if Vance is here in the end. We will see.
LEMIRE: Yeah it’s hard for Donald Trump to admit to making a mistake but certainly a lot of Republicans very unhappy right now.
