Harris criticizes the Arkansas governor's comments about her lack of biological children

Vice President Kamala Harris hit back at Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' comments that Harris “has nothing to keep her humble” because she doesn't have children.

“I don’t think she understands that there are a lot of women out here who don’t strive to be modest,” Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, told “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper.

“Secondly,” she added in the recorded interview that aired Sunday, “there are a whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, a family in their life, and children in their life, and I think “That's really important for women to lift each other up.”

“We have our family by blood and then we have our family by love. And I have both,” Harris, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff's two children, told Cooper, adding, “And I consider it a real blessing.”

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Harris spoke about her relationship with her stepchildren Cole and Ella Emhoff, her husband's biological children from his first marriage.

“They are my children. And I love these kids more than anything, and family comes in many forms,” Harris said.

Last month, Huckabee Sanders, who served in former President Donald Trump's administration, told attendees at a town hall: “My children keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris has nothing that keeps her humble.”

Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that she would “never criticize a woman for not having children.”

“The point I have made, and which Kamala Harris has confirmed by her own admission, is that she does not believe our leaders should be humble, which explains her arrogant assertion that she alone can solve our nation's problems, after “She's spent the last four years making it worse,” she continued.

Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Trump's vice presidential nominee, has criticized women on a similar basis, saying in 2021 that Democrats who don't have biological children are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who don't care about their own lives and the decisions they make.” “They made it and that’s why they want to make the rest of the country unhappy too.”

When asked what message Vance's comments send to women who cannot conceive or have children naturally, Harris responded that they were “mean and nasty.”

“I think most Americans want leaders who understand that the measure of their strength is not who you knock down. The true measure of a leader’s strength is who you lift up,” she added.

Cooper also asked Harris about Trump's comments last month at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where he said that under a future Trump administration, “you will no longer be abandoned, lonely or afraid. You will no longer be in danger. They are.” You will no longer be in danger from all the problems you have today and I will be your protector.

Trump added: “Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free.”

Harris criticized Trump and accused him of nominating three Supreme Court justices who voted to overrule Roe vs. Wade.

“They did exactly what he intended,” Harris said, adding that “there are now 20 states with Trump abortion bans, including bans that make no exceptions for rape or incest… meaning that you can give a survivor told about a crime.” If their body is violated, they have no right to decide what happens to their body next.

“This is the same guy saying this now?” Harris asked, referring to Trump's comments about protecting women. “This is the same guy who said women should be punished for having abortions? This is the same guy who uses the same language he uses to describe women? So yeah, here we go.”

A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.