JD Vance says "childless cat lady" comments were a jab at Dem's "anti-parent and anti-child" values

Republican running mate Sen. JD Vance, Ohio, is trying to backtrack on a past remark about women that was widely panned as derogatory and misogynistic.

In 2021, during an appearance on former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson's show, Vance claimed that “childless cat ladies” were helming the nation and that they “want to make the rest of the country miserable, too." Vance's comment was made in reference to Vice President Kamala Harris, who in recent weeks has emerged as the likely contender for the Democratic Party's nomination for the 2024 presidential election. "If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children," the GOP senator also said at the time, per NBC.

Sitting down with Fox News' Trey Gowdy on Sunday, Vance argued that his sentiments had been taken out of context.

“The left has increasingly become explicitly anti-child and anti-family, and they encouraged young families not to have children at all over concerns of climate change, and they suggested people having children are somehow being selfish, when being a parent is the most selfless thing that you can do,” Vance said. “This is not a criticism and never was a criticism of everybody without children — that is a lie of the left. It’s a criticism of the increasingly anti-parent and anti-child attitude of the left.

“I think a lot of parents and a lot of non-parents look at the public policy over the last four years and ask, ‘How did we get to this place? How did we get to a place where Kamala Harris is calling for an end of the child tax credit?’” the conservative added. Vance is incorrect. The Vice President has not only called to increase the child tax credit, but has advocated for the permanent adoption of the enhanced child tax credit that was temporarily in effect under pandemic relief law in 2021. Democratic support in Congress passed the law that was signed under Joe Biden.

“How do we get to a place where we were masking toddlers years into the pandemic? I think it’s because we radically under-represent the perspective of parents in our public discourse.”

[CORRECTION: A previous version of this story did not provide additional context to counter Vance's false claims about Vice President Harris' stance on the child tax credit. This information has been added.]