JD Vance’s latest audio leak has the Trump campaign once again doing damage control.

In case you’re new to the story, earlier this week audio recorded in 2021 of Vance speaking at a leadership forum hosted by the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Center for Christian Virtue, a fringe organization that aims to inject uber-conservative Christian beliefs about sexual morality into public policy, resurfaced.

The a 30-second clip was shared on social media by Heartland Signal. In it, the VP wannabe could be heard trashing childless public school teachers, accusing them of trying to “brainwash the minds of our children.”

He then singled out Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers saying, “If she wants to brainwash and destroy the mind of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.”

For the record: Weingarten, who is lesbian, doesn’t have any biological children, but she is a stepmom to her wife’s two daughters.

During an appearance on MSNBC last night, Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was asked by Chris Hayes about Vance’s comments that disparaged both public school teachers and lesbian stepmoms. The Texas congresswoman boiled it down nine words: “The guy is a weirdo, it’s really quite simple.”

Crockett, who attended Catholic school, went on to say that the JD’s backwards way of thinking would exclude nuns from teaching.

She also reminded viewers that Vance’s beliefs all stem from Project 2025, the extreme right-wing policy proposal Trump plans to implement if elected in November, “and a lot of that agenda kinda has their own definition of what Christianity looks like and what Christian families look like and what we all should be doing.”

In a statement, Vance’s national press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, tried to soften the VP wannabe’s remarks by saying there are “a lot of great teachers across the country,” and his criticism was not directed at them.

Of course, we already knew this. His criticism was very clearly directed at just the childless ones.

Van Kirk added, “There is no bigger threat to American children than the left wing indoctrination being forced on our schools by elites like Randi Weingarten, with the support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.” 

As for Weingarten, she responded this week by telling MSNBC, “Somebody doesn’t have to be a parent to be a great teacher. And, in fact, so many teachers in America, so many nuns in parochial schools, are fantastic teachers, who teach compassion and caring and critical thinking and context.”

She added that Vance’s attack is “nonsensical” and said that “in this age of disinformation and misinformation, it just makes the job of teaching and learning, the connection between parents and teachers and kids, it makes it harder.”

On the topic of making things harder, this is now the first second third who-even-knows-anymore time Vance’s past alienating remarks have come back to haunt the Trump campaign, which has been floundering ever since Kamala Harris took over the top of the Democratic Party’s ticket. And, with the election still 67 days away, we’re sure there are plenty more to come.

Cue the next audio leak in 3… 2… 1…

Related*

Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...

We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?

Once Monthly Annually

Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated