J.D. Vance Proves He’s an Idiot With Answer on Rising Daycare Costs (2024)

J.D. Vance thinks the high cost of daycare can be solved with one easy trick: Just ask your family for help!

At a Turning Point Action event in Mesa, Arizona, Wednesday, conservative pundit Charlie Kirk asked the Republican vice presidential nominee how to lower the cost of childcare. Vance’s answer seemed more than a little tone-deaf.

“One of the ways that you might be able to relieve a little bit of pressure on people who are paying so much for daycare is, maybe grandma and grandpa wants to help out a little bit more. Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more,” Vance said. “If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all of the resources that we’re spending on daycare.”

For parents who do not have access to help from relatives, Vance said that more people have to get training in childcare and that certain certifications have “nothing to do with taking care of kids.” He falsely implied that childcare specialists were forced to have a “six-year college degree” and thus had to charge more for daycare.

Vance’s solutions, if one could call them that, seem out of touch at best. Family help is not a policy solution, nor is it even practical for many parents who do have family willing to help. Childcare certifications also typically don’t require advanced college degrees, or even college degrees at all. While Washington, D.C., has a degree requirement, it’s only for a two-year associate’s degree.

Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance still follows a self-proclaimed historian who this week claimed that Winston Churchill was the “chief villain of World War 2”—not Adolf Hitler.

Vance follows Darryl Cooper from both of his accounts on X (formerly Twitter).

Cooper drew increased attention Tuesday after X CEO and fascism enthusiast Elon Musk promoted Tucker Carlson’s interview with the controversial figure on his podcast, calling it “Very interesting. Worth watching.” After the interview was criticized by figures on the right and left, Musk deleted his tweet, but not before both he and Carlson were attacked for giving pro-Nazi propaganda a platform, especially since Carlson said Cooper “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.”

As more scrutiny was focused on Cooper’s views, particularly his white nationalist sympathies, X user @styledape discovered two prominent followers of Cooper’s @martyrmade X account: @JDVance and @SenVancePress.

The fact that Vance follows such a personality suggests that he may hold similar views to Cooper but begs the question of why the Ohio senator would continue to follow him on two major social media accounts. Then again, Vance’s addition to Donald Trump’s presidential ticket has been followed by some damaging revelations from the past few years.

Right-wing media have tried to create controversy over a series of Facebook posts from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s brother, but Jeff Walz threw cold water on that effort Tuesday.

In his Facebook posts last week, which were reported on by the New York Post, the older Walz declared he’s “100% opposed to all his ideology,” referring to his brother, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Jeff Walz also replied to another Facebook commentator who urged him to publicly endorse Trump.

“I’ve thought long and hard about doing something like that! I’m torn between that and just keeping my family out of it,” Walz, a 67-year-old Florida resident, said. “The stories I could tell. Not the type of character you want making decisions about your future.”

Jeff Walz donated to Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, and reportedly hasn’t spoken to his brother Tim in eight years, aside from one conversation through their mother last month. But despite his differences with his brother Tim, Walz decided not to dive further into politics, telling NewsNation that the stories were mostly of the embarrassing family nature. He mentioned that Tim was carsick as a child and was prone to throwing up in the car on family trips, with no one wanting to sit beside him. “There’s really nothing else hidden behind there,” he added.

“I was getting a lot of feedback from my friends, old acquaintances, thinking that I was feeling the same way that my brother did on the issues, and I was trying to clarify that just to friends,” Jeff Walz said to NewsNation. “I used Facebook, which wasn’t the right platform to do that. But I will say, I don’t agree with his policies.”

“There is going to be no further statements to anybody, and we’re not campaigning or anything for him or against him or anything like that,” Walz added.

The whole effort seems to be yet another flat GOP effort to smear the Harris-Walz ticket, much like their attacks on Tim Walz’s military service or the bizarre conspiracy theory that he faked his dog Scout’s identity. Perhaps Republicans should be more worried about their own vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, who was easily mocked by the Minnesota governor ordering donuts like a normal person.