JD Vance defends his ‘childless cat lady’ comments
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Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance said Friday his comment about the “childless cat lady” was “sarcastic,” but he reiterated the Democrats’ “anti-family” and “anti-child” positions.
“It was clearly a sarcastic comment. I have nothing against cats, I have nothing against dogs, I have one dog at home and I love him,” the Ohio Republican said. “But look, people are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the content of what I actually said.”
Vance was taping an episode of The Megyn Kelly Show amid a furor over the resurfaced comment that angered a number of women, including actress Jennifer Aniston and countless Taylor Swift fans.
The vice presidential nominee claimed that both liberal and conservative women responded to the cat comments by saying they were “glad” that Vance pointed out that there is “something fundamentally anti-family in our government policy,” and he attempted to attribute that to Democratic policies.
“We have to ask ourselves: Why are we still wearing masks on toddlers years after the pandemic is over?” he mused. Vance also claimed that the Harris campaign opposed the extension of the child tax credit. “Why is the Harris campaign coming out this morning saying we shouldn’t have the child tax credit, which lowers tax rates for parents of young children?” the VP candidate said. That claim appears to be false.
The current position of the Biden administration is that the White House is “committed to restoring the critical expansion of the American Rescue Plan child tax credit to help all American families and children.” And Axios reported Wednesday that Harris, as president, would push for the expansion of the child tax credit, given that she championed it in the Senate and led efforts to pass the expansion after the improved version that was part of the American Rescue Plan expired.
She failed in that attempt, as Republican senators and some moderate Democrats botched it. Aniston’s biggest beef with Trump’s VP was Vance’s perceived opposition to IVF treatments. “All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is lucky enough to have children of her own one day,” Aniston wrote in a rare political Instagram post.
“I hope she doesn’t have to have IVF as a second option. Because you’re trying to take that away from her, too.” Vance voted against the Democratic-led Right to IVF Act last month, but supported a GOP-sponsored bill, the IVF Protection Act, which would strip states of their Medicaid funding if they banned IVF treatments but would leave some restrictions in place.
During his Q&A with Kelly, Vance explained that he was pro-IVF within reason. “I think we should protect the rights of Christian hospitals to operate the way they want to operate,” he said. “But that’s of course completely consistent with promoting fertility treatments for parents who need them.”
