Ohio senator and GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance defended his previous comments about "childless cat ladies" running the country, accusing Democrats of taking the remark out of context and using it to attack his pro-family stance.
Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has fired back at Democrats for criticizing his recent remarks about "childless cat ladies" running the country, accusing them of taking the comment out of context.
"If you look at the full context of what I said, it's very clear the Democrats have tried to take this thing out of context and blow it out of proportion, which is what they always do because they don't have an agenda to run on themselves," Vance told Fox News' Trey Gowdy on "Sunday Night in America."
JD Vance Accuses Democrats of Taking "Childless Cat Ladies" Remark Out of Context
In a 2021 interview, Vance said, "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 wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too."
Vance also singled out prominent left-wing figures, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as examples of that type.
JD Vance Accuses Democrats of Taking "Childless Cat Ladies" Remark Out of Context
After the comment resurfaced, Vance faced criticism from figures like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, actress Jennifer Aniston, and the Harris campaign for allegedly devaluing women who do not have children or are unable to have children.
However, Vance maintains that his comments were not meant to criticize all women without children, but rather the anti-child and anti-family rhetoric he believes is prevalent among some Democrats.
JD Vance Accuses Democrats of Taking "Childless Cat Ladies" Remark Out of Context
"If you look at what the American people are most concerned about, it's not an out-of-context quip I made three years ago. It's the fact that Kamala Harris, the border czar, opened the American southern border. It's the fact that the Democratic Party has become explicitly anti-family in some of their policies," Vance said.
"In fact, you just heard Kamala Harris in a surfaced clip recently talk about how it was a bad idea to have kids because of climate change anxiety, so what I'm trying to get at here is that it's important for us to be pro-family as a country," he added.
JD Vance Accuses Democrats of Taking "Childless Cat Ladies" Remark Out of Context
Vance went on to say that he believes being a parent has a "profound" effect on one's perspective, arguing that Democrats who criticize his pro-family stance are out of touch with the concerns of most Americans.
"There are a whole host of people who don't have children for a whole host of reasons, and they certainly are great people who can participate fully in the life of this country," he said. "So this is not a criticism and was never a criticism of everybody without children. That is a lie of the left."
JD Vance Accuses Democrats of Taking "Childless Cat Ladies" Remark Out of Context
Vance's comments come amid a growing debate about the role of family in society and the perceived anti-family bias of some on the left. Some Democrats have accused Republicans of using family values as a wedge issue to divide Americans, while Republicans argue that the Democratic Party is promoting policies that undermine traditional family structures.
It remains to be seen how Vance's comments will affect his and Trump's chances in the upcoming presidential election. However, the controversy surrounding his "childless cat ladies" remark has certainly thrust the issue of family into the spotlight and is likely to remain a topic of debate in the months to come.
