Fresh off the heels of the media dubbing Gov. Tim Walz and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff the faces of ‘non-toxic’ masculinity, Kamala Harris’ husband has been bestowed another honor: the title of “progressive sex symbol.”
The man who admitted to cheating on his first wife with the family nanny whom he is alleged to have impregnated is now the embodiment of the “modern female fantasy,” according to the opinion pages of The Washington Post. On Monday’s show, Megyn reacted to the hypocrisy of the fawning coverage.
Doug Emhoff: Sex Symbol?
In an op-ed titled “Doug Emhoff, modern-day sex symbol” published Friday, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell attempts to make the case that the nation’s second gentleman is the paragon of “progressive” relationship goals. “Emhoff is secure enough with his own masculinity to sometimes prioritize his wife’s ambitions over his own,” declared the sub-headline on the piece. “What. A. Hunk.”
Rampell, whose beat is economics, public policy, immigration, and politics, argued that the 59-year-old father of two gives Hollywood heartthrobs a run for their money. “Move over, Ryan Gosling. The modern female fantasy is embodied by the man who might soon become our first First Gentleman,” Rampell wrote. “Emhoff appears to be a genuine mensch with an impressive career. He’s smitten with his wife and supports her ambitions, as is obvious from his convention speech and their sweet interactions on the campaign trail.”
And that’s not all. “But most important for this sexy sobriquet: Emhoff is secure enough with his own masculinity to sometimes prioritize his wife’s ambitions over his own,” she added.
Forget what you know about why his first marriage ended, Ramped claimed that Emhoff is a “fantasy man” because he put his law career on hold to support Harris. “Whatever his previous marital drama, that makes him the working woman’s ideal partner today: He’s a high-achieving alpha, but isn’t threatened if his wife is, too,” she wrote. “He loves his job, but he loves his wife more. He knows that ‘supporting’ one’s family is about more than financial support, and that temporarily setting aside his own professional ego makes him no less of a man.”
Rampell suggested Emhoff is the antidote to outdated conservative men. “Women at least want a mate who won’t resent their career success — a tangible concern, given that divorce has been statistically more likely when women received job promotions or outearn their husbands,” she wrote. “Hence, the Emhoffian ‘wife guy’ fantasy. Which, needless to say, sharply contrasts with conservatives’ portrayal of manliness.”
At the end of the day, Rampell said women want “to be valued and supported as much as they deserve” by their husbands and, “on that score, Emhoff looks like a dreamboat.”
Megyn had but one thought after reading Rampell’s column: “The media is disgusting,” she said.
The Hypocrisy
Interestingly enough, Rampell wrote this breathless love letter to Emhoff in the wake of receiving significant backlash to a previous column that criticized Harris’ much-maligned economic plan.
“Her name may ring a bell because she is the one who wrote the piece ripping Kamala’s economic plan to shreds on the price gouging, and she got killed by her readers on the left,” Megyn noted. “So, a week later, she writes this drivel trying to rehabilitate herself at the left about the current second second gentleman.”
Back on August 15, Rampell wrote that “it’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is.” She also suggested that it is probably not a good idea to propose price controls “when your opponent calls you a ‘communist.'”
So, while Rampell may have been trying to save face with her ode to Emhoff, Megyn said there is no denying the hypocrisy of the left’s coverage. “J.D. Vance married a working woman… who he met at Yale Law School. She is a professional woman who clerked for two justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, and has a job at a great law firm, and is raising three kids with him,” she explained. “I mean, this woman is firing on all cylinders by anybody’s measure, and he is 100 percent on board for all of it.”
There has been little mention of that amid all the outcry about Vance’s years-old “childless cat ladies” comment. “It’s interesting,” Megyn concluded. “I didn’t see the pieces praising him for being a man who can handle that, whose ego is strong enough that he can let the wife be in the starring role.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 870 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.