Moment Tim Walz's wife Gwen uses her 'teacher voice' to tell J.D. Vance to 'mind your own business' at first solo campaign event
Gwen Walz ripped J.D. Vance for his previous comments about teachers and IVF, using her 'teacher's voice' to tell him to 'mind your own business.'
Walz, the wife of Harris running mate Tim Walz, was speaking at her first solo campaign event, a forum with teachers in Virginia.
'We do not take kindly to folks like J.D. Vance telling us when or how to start our families,' she said on Friday.
Then Walz, an English teacher, took out her glasses and put them on the edge of her nose.
'So let me use my teacher voice,' she said. 'Mr. Vance, how about you mind your own business?'
The crowd roared in approval.
Gwen Walz spoke at her first solo campaign event, saying 'We do not take kindly to folks like J.D. Vance telling us when or how to start our families.'
Tim, 60, and Gwen Walz, 58, have been public about their struggle with fertility and how they used fertility treatments to conceive their two children.
The Walzes used a treatment known as intrauterine insemination, or IUI. IUI is often attempted before IVF but doesn't face the same level of political controversy because it doesn't risk destroying unused embryos that anti-abortion advocates say equate to unborn children.
'J.D. Vance said he was really disturbed by teachers who don't have biological children well,' Gwen Walz noted.
'Tim and I were teachers who struggled with infertility, and we were only able to start a family because of fertility treatments.'
'We do not take kindly to folks like J.D. Vance telling us when or how to start our families,' she added.
A few days ago it was revealed, in newly resurfaced remarks, that Vance attacked teachers who do not have children.
Vance, in 2021, was speaking at a forum held by the Center for Christian Virtue when he attacked Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, for not having children.
'So many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they're people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children, that really disorients me and disturbs me,' he said at the time.
'Randi Weingarten, who's the head of the most powerful teachers' union in the country, she doesn't have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.'
More recently, Vance criticized the Walz family for their use of fertility treatments.
'If it was up to him, I wouldn't have a family because of IVF,' he said in early August.
Vance also branded Tim Walz a liar for saying the family used IVF instead of IUI. Vance has voted against Democratic legislation to protect IVF.
'Today it came out that Tim Walz had lied about having a family via IVF. Who lies about something like that?' Vance wrote on social media.
A spokesman for Walz said he 'was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.'
IUI involves placing a partner's or donor's sperm in the uterus at the time of ovulation. With IVF, a woman's eggs are removed from her body, combined with the sperm and then transferred back into her uterus.
Fertility treatments are deeply personal for couples and both treatments can be stressful both physically and emotionally.
J.D. Vance has come under fire for his remarks on families
Vance has come under fire for his remarks on families, particularly when he poked fun at 'childless cat ladies.'
He later said he was making a joke.
He and other Republicans, in contrast, have been trying to poke holes in Tim Walz' biography, particularly on his military record. The fertility treatment attacks on the VP nominee were part of that effort.
At her event on Friday, Gwen Walz said Donald Trump is trying to rewrite his record on reproductive rights.
She noted teachers believe in telling the truth.
'So here are the facts and there aren't any alternatives to these,' she said. 'Donald Trump is the one who took down Roe and put access to IVF at risk. That's a fact. And he's running on a platform that puts these treatments at risk nationwide and that's a fact.'
Democrats have been attacking Trump for his record on reproductive rights. It was a potent issue for them in the 2022 midterm election, driving many voters, particularly women, to the ballot box.
On Friday, the Harris campaign kicked off a Reproductive Freedom Bus tour across the battleground states.
