In a 2021 interview with Fox News, JD Vance lamented that the United States was being run by “childless cat ladies” like Vice President Kamala Harris, women who he claimed had no “direct stake” in the country’s future.

This week, Ms. Harris received a powerful gesture of support from one of her biggest advocates: the mother of her stepchildren.

“For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” Kerstin Emhoff said in a statement released by the office of the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

On Thursday morning, Ella Emhoff chimed in as well: “How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I,” she wrote on Instagram, urging her mother to “say it louder for the people in the back.”

Although the comments by Mr. Vance are several years old, dating to when he was running for the Senate, they are landing differently in a new political climate.