Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who has drawn widespread blowback over remarks targeting "childless cat ladies" previously attacked people without children in a series of emails and podcasts uncovered by CNN's KFile.
Vance in a clip from a conservative podcast recorded in November 2020 said that childless Americans, especially those of the “leadership class,” were "more sociopathic" and made the country “less mentally stable” than those with children. He added that the “most deranged” and “most psychotic” commentators on X/Twitter typically don’t have children.
Later, in August 2021, Vance’s Senate campaign sent fundraising emails referring to the “radical childless leaders in this country,” following his appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight" on which he made disparaging comments about “childless cat ladies.” These very comments seem to have come back to haunt the senator.
A month later, in September, Vance posted on X that “cat ladies…must be stopped” in response to a report that showed that a higher percentage of Americans are abstaining from having children in fear of climate change. The next month, he wrote, “Our country’s low birth rates have made many elites sociopaths,” CNN reported.
While the Ohio senator maintained that his comments were “sarcastic” in a recent interview on Megyn Kelly’s podcast last week, CNN’s KFile identified that this has been a persistent pattern of rhetoric for Vance.
“Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats,” Vance told Kelly. He added that he wasn’t trying to insult people without children and merely highlighting Democratic policies that he claimed have become ”anti-family” and “ anti-child” despite the Democrats' efforts to codify a Child Tax Credit that has widespread opposition from Republicans.
Vance spokesperson, Taylor Van Kirk, told CNN “As [Senator Vance] has clearly stated, he was talking about politicians on the left who support policies that are explicitly anti-child and anti-family.”
“The media can obsess over it all they want, but he’s not going to back down when it comes to advocating for policies that protect parental rights and encourage people to have more kids,” Kirk added.
