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For the first time, Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed criticism from some Republicans that she does not have biological children, saying in a podcast interview Sunday that much of the commentary was “mean-spirited” and misunderstood women who either can’t have children or simply did not want to.

In an appearance on the podcast “Call Her Daddy,” which is popular with Gen Z and millennial women, Harris discussed reproductive rights and economic issues. She addressed comments from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who recently suggested that having biological children helped with her humility — a virtue she implied Harris lacked.

“I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble,” Harris told the host, Alex Cooper. “Two, a whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life and children in their life. And I think it’s really important for women to lift each other up.”

When the conversation turned to attacks by Republicans against “childless cat ladies,” Harris called the criticism, popularized by past comments by Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, “mean and mean-spirited.” Harris referred to her stepchildren, Cole and Ella Emhoff, as her children.

“I love those kids to death,” Harris said. “And family comes in many forms. I think that increasingly, you know, all of us understand that this is not the 1950s anymore.”

The “Call Her Daddy” interview was part of several appearances that Harris will make this week with news outlets and niche podcasts or radio shows. Several of the platforms are considered to be friendly to her, or at least far less probing than a traditional news interview would be.

Harris will sit for an interview with the news program “60 Minutes,” which will be broadcast Monday evening. But interviews with personalities like Cooper, Harris’ advisers insist, are part of a strategy that will target groups of voters who may not be television watchers and may not be getting their information from mainstream news platforms.

In Cooper’s case, she represents a generation of women who were of reproductive age when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that had provided a constitutional right to an abortion. But, as she told the vice president during their 40-minute sit-down, her listeners also feel disillusioned and distrustful of politics.

“Why should we trust you?” Cooper asked Harris at one point.

“You can look at my career to know what I care about,” Harris said, referring to her roles as a prosecutor and politician. “I care about making sure that people are entitled to and receive the freedoms that they are due.”

Their conversation was largely focused on reproductive rights, sexual abuse, student loans and debt. (Cooper joked in a note to her listeners before the episode ran that she was not the right person to have a discussion about fracking with the vice president.) Cooper said she was given 40 minutes to talk to the vice president and “no topic was off limits.” A spokesperson for the campaign said Harris did not receive any questions in advance.

Cooper and Harris talked at length about how post-Roe abortion bans and restrictions in 20 states have affected women.

Harris pointed out that she was the first person in her role to have ever visited a reproductive health clinic, and said that many critics of those facilities do not understand the full range of care provided to patients. (She visited a Minnesota Planned Parenthood last spring.) Across the country, dozens of reproductive health care clinics have shuttered or reduced their services since Roe was overturned, forcing many patients to cross state lines or try to find treatments online.

“You know what those clinics also do?” Harris said. “They do paps, they do breast cancer screenings, they do HIV testing, and they’re having to close in many places with these bans.”

When discussing the economy, Harris highlighted policies she has promoted on the campaign trail, including a $6,000 tax credit for families with children younger than 1, and down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. She also said she would keep fighting for student debt relief if elected, calling college debt “a huge issue” that is “a barrier to people being able to even think about starting a family, buying a home.”

In a note to her listeners before the show, Cooper said she debated whether to have Harris on her podcast. In the past, she had stayed away from politics, and had even implied that she had turned down appeals from the White House to have the president and vice president on her show. Cooper also said she had invited Trump to go on the show to talk about reproductive rights, but did not say whether she had heard back.

Cooper first made her name in the podcast world by discussing sex and relationships, but has slowly waded into talking politics, particularly in the post-Roe era. She recently signed a $125 million deal with SiriusXM. On Sunday, “Call Her Daddy” was ranked 15th among the most popular podcasts on Spotify.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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