Donald Trump's running mate J.D. Vance, who was roundly slammed for describing a number of Democrats as miserable "childless cat ladies" in a recently resurfaced interview, has doubled down on the controversial remarks.
"I have nothing against cats," he quipped dismissively in a comment unlikely to woo already-alienated voters in an interview on Megyn Kelly's Sirius XM program that aired Friday evening.
He added: "The substance of what I said, Megyn, I'm sorry, it's true."
Vance lumped Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into the same childless category during a 2021 interview on Fox News. The comment fueled a groundswell of social media opposition to the candidate by "cat ladies" and their supporters.
"We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too," Vance said in the interview revealed this week in a posting on X by Hillary Clinton.
"How does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?" he asked.
Harris is the stepmother to two children from husband Doug Emhoff's first marriage, and Buttigieg and his husband Chasten Buttigieg adopted twins in 2021.
Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who has three children with his wife, Usha Vance, defended his remarks in his Kelly interview, claiming it was a "sarcastic comment," adding: "I've got nothing against cats."
He added: "I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this, Megyn, but the simple point I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way."
This is "something of course we've recognized for hundreds of years in this country and in human civilization," he continued.
Vance then accused the Democratic Party of being "anti-child."
"It's not a criticism of people who don't have children," he insisted.
"I explicitly said in my remarks, despite the fact that the media has lied about this, that this is not about criticizing people who for various reasons didn't have kids, this is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child," said Vance, who ignored the fact that he had, in fact, targeted specific individuals.
Vance also failed to explain his contradiction opposing IVF treatments for women unable to conceive without medical aid. Nor did he enumerate any programs pushed by Republicans that likely Trump opponent Kamala Harris supports, such as affordable health care and child care that would aid families with children.
"Friends" star Jennifer Aniston was among those who criticized Vance when the 2021 interview resurfaced.
"I truly can't believe this is coming from a potential VP of the United States," she wrote, linking to a screenshot of the interview on Instagram.
"All I can say is ... Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day," Aniston, 55, who has chronicled her struggles with fertility, wrote in her post.
"I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too."
Jennifer Aniston and other childless cat ladies agree! “All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,” Aniston wrote in her post. “I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are… pic.twitter.com/NZ1ZSO0wq0
— Lydia Cornell (@LydiaCornell) July 27, 2024
