JD Vance says 2021 comments about giving more votes to people with kids were a ‘thought experiment’

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance on Sunday defended his 2021 comments about allocating more votes to people with children, saying they were a “thought experiment.”

In a widely circulated video clip from a 2021 speech he gave to a conservative organization called the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Vance suggested giving more votes to people with children than to people who have none.

“Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children,” Vance said in his 2021 speech. “When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”

During an interview on ABC News on Sunday, Vance, R-Ohio, maintained that his 2021 comment was “not a policy proposal,” but a “thought experiment.”

“Democrats said we should give children the right to vote — some Democrats had said we’re going to give children the right to vote,” he said. “And I said, well, if we’re going to give the rights to the children, then we should actually just allow the parents to cast those votes. Right? I trust a parent more with a decision like that than I do, say, a 14-year-old. So, it’s a thought experiment.”

“I’ve been a senator for two years. Have I proposed any legislation to that effect? Of course not,” he added. “Sometimes people make remarks in response to something that somebody else has said. If it was a policy proposal, I would have made the policy proposal in my two