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JD Vance claimed during an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan that teenagers become “trans” to better their chances of getting into Ivy League schools.
In the three-hour episode of The Joe Rogan Experience that was released on Thursday, the Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee also claimed that some women “celebrate” their abortions and that studies show that “testosterone levels in young men” are connected to “conservative politics.”
Vance spent significant amounts of time criticizing transgender and nonbinary people, and added that he believed he and former President Donald Trump are likely to win the “normal gay guy vote.”
The first-term senator claimed that children in some white families think that becoming trans would enhance their chances of getting into Ivy League schools. There is no data that being trans betters chances of getting into a particular school.
“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, like, obviously, that pathway has become a lot harder for a lot of upper-middle-class kids,” Vance said.
He added: “But the one way that those people can participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans.”
DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – is a framework that aims to promote the fair treatment of all people.
Trump also recently appeared on Rogan’s show as he and Vance attempt to bring out young, male voters to the polls via a series of podcast appearances.
Vance claimed during the interview that liberal women were publically celebrating their abortions, including “baking birthday cakes and posting about it” online.
“I think there’s very few people that are celebrating,” Rogan pushed back.
“For a lot of people, one of the issues is that men are making decisions for what women can and can’t do,” the comedian told Vance. “And one of the more concerning aspects of this is … say if you live in a state like Texas where there’s a limit to when you can get an abortion, I think it’s like six weeks, which a lot of people think at that point in time you can’t even tell whether or not you’re pregnant, and this puts a lot of women in very vulnerable positions.”
He added: “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.”
Vance claimed not to have heard of anyone being detained for traveling for an abortion.
“I don’t like the idea, to be clear, of people getting arrested for freely moving around the country,” the senator said.
During one part of the discussion, Vance asked Rogan: “Have you seen all these studies that basically connect testosterone levels in young men with conservative politics?”
“Maybe that’s why the Democrats want us all to be [in] … poor health and overweight … because it means we’re going to be more liberal, right? If you make people less healthy, they apparently become more politically liberal,” he added.