Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. Photo by David Paul Morris/Christian Monterrosa/Getty Images

By Benyamin Cohen August 28, 2024

Sen. JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, said several years ago that Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, should not have a say in public school education because she doesn’t have biological children. A liberal-leaning news site, Heartland Signal, resurfaced the comments Tuesday on social media, which were then reshared by the Harris-Walz campaign.

“So many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids, trying to brainwash the minds of our children, and that really disorients me and it really disturbs me,” Vance said at the Center for Christian Virtue leadership forum while he was running for Senate in October 2021.

“Randi Weingarten, who’s the head of the most powerful teachers union in the country — she doesn’t have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone,” Vance went on to say.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis of the crisis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

At the same event, Vance railed against transgender rights and homes without heterosexual parents. “If we want kids to have a good life, if we want kids to be able to have happy, fulfilled existences, there needs to be moms and dads in the home,” he said.

Weingarten, an influential Jewish activist, married Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in 2018. Kleinbaum has two step-children from a previous marriage, and Weingarten has referred to herself as a “a mother by marriage.”

“JD Vance’s comments are sad and insulting to millions of modern families, and school teachers including Catholic nuns, none of whom should be targeted for their family decisions,” Weingarten responded on social media.

On Wednesday, she added: “It sure seems like Vance lacks an empathy gene — thank goodness he’s not a teacher. He doesn’t get that you don’t have to be a parent to care about kids, our neighbors, our communities and our country.”

This is not the first time Weingarten has been attacked along these lines. During a 2023 Congressional hearing about COVID-19 and school closures, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) questioned Weingarten’s credentials, asserting that she was “not a medical doctor, not a biological mother, and really not a teacher, either.”

Vance, who was raised evangelical, converted to Catholicism in 2019 at the age of 35. “He was drawn not just to the church’s theological ideas, but also to its teachings on family and social order and its desire to instill virtue in modern society,” The New York Times recently reported in a story about how Catholicism influences Vance’s moral and political philosophy.

Vance’s comments about Weingarten echo something he said in 2021 on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. Talking about Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, Vance described her as one of the “childless cat ladies” running the nation who “want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” (When confronted about the remarks this July, he said he was being sarcastic.)

Harris has been married to Doug Emhoff since 2014 and is a step-mother to Cole, 29, and Ella, 25.

Asked for comment about Weingarten, a spokesperson for Vance told NBC News, “There is no bigger threat to American children than the left-wing indoctrination being peddled in our schools by radicals like Randi Weingarten, with the support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Clarification: The original version of this article said that Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum has two children from a previous marriage; they are her step-children.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount