Doug Emhoff blasts Gov. Sanders’ remarks about Harris not having biological children

(NEW YORK) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff blasted remarks made by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said Vice President Kamala Harris “doesn’t have anything to keep her humble” because she does not have biological children.

“We know that all parents, no matter how you become one, make the same sacrifices and revel in the same joys of raising children as any parent anywhere,” Emhoff defended his wife while speaking at a campaign event in Brooklyn, New York, Wednesday evening.

“As if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for. It is not,” the second gentleman said. “Women in this country will never humble themselves before Donald Trump.”

Emhoff referred to Sanders’ comment as “unbelievable,” and he expressed his appreciation for his wife, ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff, and their “big, beautiful, blessed family.”

Harris is the stepmom to Cole and Ella Emhoff, her husband’s children from his first marriage.

Kerstin Emhoff jumped to Harris’ defense as well, responding to a video of Sanders on X.

“Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, ALL families. That keeps you pretty humble,” she wrote Tuesday.

Sanders had been speaking at a Michigan town hall with former President Donald Trump on Tuesday when she made the comments. “So my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble,” she said.

During a visit Wednesday to a Bitcoin bar in Greenwich Village, New York, Trump was asked about Sanders’ remarks and whether Harris should be attacked for not having biological children.

“Well, I just don’t know what I think about it, you know,” Trump said during the event.

Ohio Sen. JD Vance previously commented on Harris and other women for not having children with his well-known “childless cat ladies” comment.

In the 2021 clip, which only recently resurfaced, Vance accused Harris and the Democrats of being “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.”

There has been much backlash to Vance’s remark, and some have even made mocked the comment by making it their own. Most famously, Taylor Swift signed her endorsement for Harris as a “childless cat lady.”

ABC News’ Will McDuffie, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Fritz Farrow, and Chris Donovan contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.