JD Vance Says His Previous Statements About Kamala Harris and ‘Catless Ladies’ Were ‘Ironic’ in Interview with Megyn Kelly
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance claimed that his previous comments about the country being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies” were just a “sarcastic comment” in an interview to save face with the journalist and television personality. Megyn Kelly aired on Friday.
In a 2021 interview with the former Fox News host and current ally Tucker Carlson“We are really running this country—through the Democratic Party, through our corporate oligarchs—by a bunch of childless catgirls who are miserable with their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable,” Vance said, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris by name
“Obviously, that was a sarcastic comment,” Ohio Sen. Vance told Kelly on Friday. “I have nothing against cats, I have nothing against dogs, I have a dog at home, and I love him, Megyn.” “But,” he continued, “people are focusing too much on the sarcastic comment and not on the substance of what I actually said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry, it’s true. It’s true that we’ve become anti-family. It’s true that the left has become anti-child.”
In the week since President Joe BidenFollowing his decision to drop out of the race and then endorse Harris, there has been a new wave of backlash over comments Vance has made in the past about the political and social value of parents versus childless Americans.
The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board criticized Vance’s comments as “the kind of clever lie that makes some right-wing male voting districts laugh” but “does not go over well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republicans, who will decide the presidential race”.
Vance’s 2021 conversation with Carlson was an attempt to address comments he made just days earlier in a speech hosted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a nonprofit that promotes conservative ideas on college campuses. In that speech, Vance said parents should have more voting rights than childless Americans.
“Let’s give the right to vote to every child in this country, but let’s give the control of those votes to the parents of those children,” Vance said at the time. “When you go to vote in this country, as a parent, you should have more power, you should have more ability to have your say in our Democratic Republic than someone who doesn’t have children.”
He targeted the Minister of Transport. Pete ButtigiegSenator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Harris, declared that childless Democratic leaders have no “real commitment to the future of this country.”
Booker and AOC do not have any children. A month after Vance’s comments, Buttigieg and her husband Chasten adopted newborn twins. And while Vice President Harris has no biological children, she is a stepmother to two children. Kid, little girl And Cole Emhoffpeople calling her “Momala.” On Thursday, Ella responded to Vance’s comments about her stepmother on Instagram, saying, “How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cute kids like Cole and me?”
On Kelly’s show this week, Vance claimed that his comments about parental voting rights were “obviously” a “thought experiment.”
“I don’t know her family situation,” he continued, referring to Harris. “I read in the media that she has two stepchildren. I wish her stepchildren, and Kamala Harris and her entire family, the best. The problem is not that she is inferior; the problem is that her party has pursued a series of policies that are extremely anti-child.”
In both her previous campaign cycles and this one, Harris has been a vocal advocate for policies that benefit parents, such as universal access to child care and paid family leave.
