Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio speaks at a campaign event, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, in Byron Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

EDITOR’S NOTE (8/15): This article has been edited to include comments from a JD Vance spokesperson.

While appearing on “The Portal” podcast in April 2020, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) agreed with host Eric Weinstein’s claim that “postmenopausal females” exist just to help take care of children.

In the podcast, the current Republican vice-presidential nominee mentioned that his son benefited from having exposure to his grandparents, expressing importance for the multigenerational family. Weinstein replied saying “that’s the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female in theory,” to which Vance immediately agreed with by saying “Yes.”

Vance went on to explain that his mother-in-law, who worked as a biology professor, took a sabbatical for a year to move in and help take care of his newborn child. He says it’s just “what you do.”

He also agreed with Weinstein that grandparents helping raise his children is a “weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.” 

Vance said that “hyper-liberalized economics” would want his mother-in-law to continue working, but still give them money to hire someone to help them. 

“I think it’s super important that we one, not idealize especially the 1950s version of an American housewife, because as my grandma told me, it was very lonely,” Vance expressed. “And I do try to emphasize the point about choice, whether it’s structurally driven, culturally driven, individually driven.”

Vance has also taken a position in favor on a national abortion ban, preventing no-fault divorce even in violent marriages, and criticizing working mothers for needing affordable child care.

A spokesperson for Vance denied that the senator had agreed with Weinstein and blamed the media for “dishonestly putting words in JD’s mouth.”

“JD reacted to the first part of the host’s sentence, assuming he was going to say: ‘that’s the whole purpose of spending time with grandparents,’” said Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance. “It’s a disgrace that the media is lying about JD instead of holding Kamala Harris accountable for her policies that caused sky high prices for groceries and everyday necessities, a disaster at the southern border and a historic drug overdose epidemic.”

Van Kirk continued: “JD was complementing the selflessness of his mother-in-law for being willing to help care for her grandchildren. Millions of grandparents across our country do the same every day.”

At the time of the recording, Weinstein was the managing director of Thiel Capital, a hedge fund founded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Vance pivoted from law to venture capital in large part because of Thiel’s mentorship, and the senator benefited greatly from the billionaire’s funding for the 2022 Ohio Senate race that he ultimately won.