Vance bashes ‘complete loser’ Beshear over comments about rape and abortion

KENOSHA, Wisconsin — Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) said Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) was “effectively fantasizing” about a member of his family getting raped after controversial comments Beshear made Tuesday.

Vance, speaking to reporters on an airport tarmac in Milwaukee on Tuesday afternoon, blasted Beshear for the remarks, which the governor later walked back. Beshear appeared to say that Vance’s family should have to deal with a pregnancy resulting from rape. Vance called Beshear’s comments “disgusting.”

“He’s effectively fantasizing about some member of my family getting raped so that I know what it feels like. I just think that’s really gross and really disgusting,” Vance said. “Look, I mean, the guy’s a complete loser and he’s gone after me repeatedly, but this particular thing going after my family really bothered me.”

On MSNBC on Tuesday morning, Beshear had referenced comments Vance made in 2021 in which opponents accused him of calling a pregnancy resulting from rape “inconvenient” but that Vance says were rather made in the context of an unexpected pregnancy.

“Think about what some people have had to go through because of these laws,” Beshear said. “J.D. Vance calls pregnancy resulting from rape ‘inconvenient.’ An inconvenience is traffic. Make him go through this.”

Vance said Tuesday he “never once called rape inconvenient.”

“It’s a total fiction of the Democratic National Committee,” he told reporters. “I never said it. I never said anything like it. What I was talking about was the context of an unexpected pregnancy, not one caused by rape. And I think that we shouldn’t see unexpected pregnancies, babies that come from them, as inconveniences.”

“Of course rape is a terrible, terrible tragedy and a terrible, terrible thing,” Vance added.

Amid a torrent of criticism, Beshear later returned to MSNBC and said “of course” he wasn’t suggesting Vance’s family should be harmed.