Donald Trump’s Veep Pick JD Vance Triggers Row

Republican Vice-Presidential nominee JD Vance recently triggered a row by making controversial remarks on transgender and nonbinary people, suggesting that some white children are incentivised to “become” trans to get college admissions into Ivy Leagues.

Mr Vance made the statement during an interview podcast with Joe Rogan.

“If you are a middle-class or upper-middle-class white parent, and the only thing that you care about is whether your child goes into Harvard or Yale, obviously that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper-middle class kids…The one way that those people can participate in the DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) bureaucracy in this country is to be trans,” he told Mr Rogan.

Mr Vance also had some outrageous views on transgender rights and whether they should be allowed to play on sports teams that match their gender identity.

“I’m the father of a two-year-old daughter. I don’t want her going into athletic competitions where I’m terrified she’s gonna get bludgeoned to death because we’re allowing a six-foot-one male to compete with her in sports,” he said.

According to Mr Vance, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump may get the “normal gay” vote.

“I won’t be surprised if Trump won the normal gay guy vote because again, they just wanted to be left alone,” he said.

Abortion Rights

Mr Vance also touched upon abortion rights in the US and spoke dismissively of it. According to him, women are “publicly celebrating their abortions by baking birthday cakes and posting about it” – which Mr Rogan disagreed with.

“I think it’s six weeks is a limit to when you can have an abortion, which a lot of people think then you can’t even tell whether or not you are pregnant, and this puts a lot of women in very vulnerable positions. And then there is this thought that they could go to another state where it is legal and have an abortion, but they could be possibly prosecuted for that in their state. That’s concerning to me,” Mr Rogan said.

To this, Mr Vance said that he has “not heard of any women being arrested for traveling to have an abortion”.

Mr Vance, in the three-hour episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, also spoke on Mr Trump’s assassination attempt and climate change. He also joked about recent US President Joe Biden’s “garbage” comment against Mr Trump, saying that Mr Biden is helping the former US President win the election.