(NewsNation) — Comments Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance made in 2021 about “violent” marriages circulated online after former President Donald Trump announced he chose him as his running mate in the 2024 election.
Vice reported on his remarks, which Vance made at an event that took place at Pacifica Christian High School in Southern California. Vance faced backlash after the report came out, but previously said his comments had been misconstrued.
“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, ‘well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy,'” Vance said, according to the 2022 Vice article. “And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.”
Vance continued to say that while this might have worked out for the parents involved, “it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages.”
“That’s what I think all of us should be honest about, is we’ve run this experiment in real time,” Vance said. “And what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy.”
At the event, Vance had been responding to a question by a moderator referencing his grandparents’ relationship, which he detailed in his bestselling book “Hillbilly Elegy.” In the book, Vance described the couple’s marriage as violent.
What was the reaction to Vance’s comments on marriages?
On Monday, after Vance was officially named Trump’s pick for vice president, Shannon Watts, founder of the organization Moms Demand, criticized his comments on X.
“JD Vance said women are obligated to stay in ‘violent’ marriages,” Watts wrote. “Each month, 70 women are fatally shot by intimate partners in the US, and 1 million women alive today have been shot or shot at by intimate partners.”
Researchers for Everytown, a gun violence prevention organization, analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Violent Death Reporting System to arrive at that statistic.
Another post on X said, “Vance is the guy who wants to make it near impossible for women in violent marriages to divorce.”
Right after Vance made the comments, he was criticized by local politicians, including then-Democratic state Sen. Tina Maharath.
“If (Vance) wants to act like our U.S. Senator, then I encourage our fellow legislators to to encourage him to be more clear about his statements, and if he’s doubling down on it, then I encourage everybody to condemn those statements because they’re very inappropriate,” WFMJ quoted Maharath as saying.
Former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, who ran against Vance in 2022, wrote that what his opponent said was “not just wrong, it’s unbelievably dangerous.”
What Vance has said on divorce
A spokesperson told Newsweek and Vice in 2022 that Vance does not support changing marriage laws regarding divorce.
Through a campaign staffer, Vance sent Vice a statement saying its reporter’s questions on his comments were “bogus.”
“Any fair person would recognize I was criticizing the progressive frame on this issue, not embracing it,” Vance said. “I’m an actual victim of domestic violence. In my life, I have seen siblings, wives, daughters, and myself abused by men. It’s disgusting for you to argue that I was defending those men.”
Asked specifically if “he thinks people in violent marriages should generally stay together or get divorced,” a spokesperson said they felt Vance’s statement already answered this question, per Vice. \
NewsNation is reaching out to Vance’s team for comment.
