JD Vance has reportedly confessed he made a mistake with his “childless cat ladies” remark in the past. The vice president admitted that he was wrong to make the comment while describing Kamala Harris. Vance opened up about the remark in his new book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.”
JD Vance reflects on the 2021 ‘childless cat ladies’ controversy
In his new memoir, JD Vance admitted that he made a mistake referring to his predecessor, Kamala Harris, and other women in the Democratic Party as “childless cat ladies.” In a passage from the book, obtained by NBC News, the vice president confessed, “One of the dumbest things I ever said came when I argued that ‘childless cat ladies’ across the Democrat Party were running our country into the ground.”
Vance continued, “The comment caused two firestorms: the first when I made it, the second years later during a political campaign.” He added, “It was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.”
Vance had previously made a critique of Harris during a 2021 speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference. He called Harris a member of the “childless left” at the time, saying they have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.” During an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, Vance said the childless Democrats “want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
In his book, Vance admitted that his past “cat lady” comment was “enraging,” writing that it “had the added benefit of distracting from the actual point I wanted to make, which was that our society is becoming pathologically hostile to having kids.” The vice president added that he “could have made that point much more effectively, and with the benefit of showing a little charity to the many Americans who — some for reasons beyond their control — don’t have children.”
Originally reported by Namrata Ghosh on Mandatory.
