Kamala Harris called out for comments on impact of 'climate anxiety' on childbearing decisions

Just one week into her presidential campaign, Kamala Harris is already taking aim at Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance over remarks he has made about what he views as Democrats' anti-family positions.

Perhaps lending credence to Vance's arguments is a recently resurfaced video of Harris discussing the fears she believes young adults harbor when it comes to the idea of having children, as Fox News reports.

Trump Jr. highlights footage

The Harris video re-entered the current discourse after Donald Trump Jr. shared it on X.

In the footage, taken during Harris' “Fight for Our Freedoms” tour last September, the now-likely Democratic nominee held forth on the impact she believes climate change is having on young Americans' perception of their own future prospects.

Trump Jr. introduced the footage by writing, “Resurfaced video shows Kamala Harris suggesting that young people should not have children due to climate change.”

“She calls climate anxiety 'the fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children,'” he added.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk responded to Trump Jr.'s post by musing of Harris, “She is an extinctionist.”

Vance vindicated?

In the midst of his current campaign efforts with former President Trump, Vance has courted controversy on the left for comments made in 2021 about the opposition party being led by “childless cat ladies,” as ABC News noted.

Forced to defend those comments in the wake of liberal outrage in recent days, Vance told journalist Megyn Kelly this week that what he really meant was that the Democratic Party is “anti-family” in its policy stances.

“The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way,” Vance explained.

Harris, for her part, has no biological children of her own, and her supporters have accused Vance of wrongfully using that fact as an irrelevant -- yet hurtful -- political cudgel.

However, given Harris' own words about climate change concerns and their supposed relevance to childbearing decisions, it seems reasonable that Vance -- or anyone else -- would make the link between such radical alarmism and the policymaking choices likely to follow from it.