During a recent interview with Joe Rogansenator J.D. Vance suggested that high school students change their genders to help them get into exclusive colleges like Harvard and Yale.

After Anderson Cooper aired a clip of the Republican vice-presidential candidate making the curious comment, his panel AC360 guests couldn’t contain their laughter Thursday night on CNN.

The segment opened with Cooper playing a clip of Vance talk to Rogan about the “normal gay vote,” which he says will support the Trump-Vance ticket before moving on to his trans comment:

I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump and I win. Just normal gay people voting because once again, they just wanted to be left alone. And now you have all this crazy stuff on top of it. If you’re a white, middle-class or upper-middle-class parent, and all you care about is whether your child goes to Harvard or Yale, it’s clear that this journey has become much more difficult for many upperclassmen. middle class children. But the only way these people can participate in the ID bureaucracy in this country is if they are trans.

After the clip ended, the panel burst into laughter at the apparent absurdity of Vance’s suggestion, particularly in Van Jones. Cooper seemed equally amused and surprised by Vance’s comments, saying, “So the idea that people are going through, you know, surgery to get into these colleges, I listen.” I mean, I know parents will go to great lengths to get their child into a good school. He then explained how J.D. Vance got into Yale in part because of his unique background as a poor, rural Ohio kid, which he detailed in his book.

Before his panel spoke, Cooper also couldn’t let the “normal gay guy” comment slide. “But I also like the fact that I guess gay people are now accepted by this one for me. At first I thought JD Vance thought there were normal gay people. So I guess it’s that kind of progress. I’m curious what the difference is – what the line is between a normal gay person and a not-normal gay person..”

“Assuming I can guess what it looks like, you know, the whole drag thing, I guess, you know, that drag, you know, wearing as much makeup as Donald Trump, that would be considered abnormal. That’s fine for Donald Trump, but for a gay guy it wouldn’t count,” Cooper concluded.

Watch above via CNN.

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