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JD Vance, former president Donald Trump's running mate for the upcoming election, is defending his previous comment about "childless cat ladies."
Vance made the controversial comment during an appearance on Fox News in 2021 amid his bid for an Ohio Senate seat. At the time, Vance said the U.S. was being run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."
"It's just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it?"
On Friday (July 26), Vance addressed the comment, which resurfaced on social media this week.
"Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment," he said in an interview on "The Megyn Kelly Show" podcast. "I've got nothing against cats. I've got nothing against dogs. … People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said. The substance of what I said, Megyn — I'm sorry, it's true."
"These people want to conflate the personal situation here with the fact that I'm making an argument that our entire society has become skeptical and even hateful towards the idea of having kids," Vance added.
Vance said the comment wasn't "a criticism of people who don't have children."
"This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child," he said.
Vance said his initial comment stemmed from his wife, Usha, saying she felt pressure from society to not have children because it would negatively affect her career.
"What a weird society that we set up where moms who want to work, the thought that a lot of them are having is, 'I can't have more babies because it's going to be bad for my career,'" Vance said, adding that "having kids is good" because "being a parent changes your perspective on the world."
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