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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Kelly Rissman

JD Vance’s sexist comments on ‘childless cat ladies’ like Kamala Harris go viral again

AFP via Getty Images

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Donald Trump’s newly minted running mate JD Vance is going viral yet again for past sexist comments about Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president in the 2024 election.

In a resurfaced clip from 2021, Vance told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country was 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.”

“Look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” Vance continued. “How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday and swiftly endorsed Harris to replace him. Later that day, Harris confirmed that she would be running for the Democratic nomination.

Harris, who is married to longtime entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff, actually has two step-children: Ella and Cole Emhoff.

In 2019, she wrote in Elle: “I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.”

“A few years later when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term ‘stepmom.’ Instead they came up with the name ‘Momala,’” she said.

“Our time as a family is Sunday dinner. We come together, all of us around the table, and over time we’ve fallen into our roles. Cole sets the table and picks the music, Ella makes beautiful desserts, Doug acts as my sous-chef, and I cook.”

Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski mocked Vance’s comments on Tuesday, after they went viral, while scratching a cat who was sitting on her lap.

Harris has already faced a barrage of offensive attacks in the days she announced her candidacy (AFP via Getty Images)

“My kids are older. Does that make me childless? I want to qualify,” she said.

Social media users also have come to Harris’s defense to call out the sexism.

“JD Vance called Kamala Harris a ‘childless cat lady’ despite her being married with two stepchildren because he’s a misogynistic garbage fire. Women only have value to the GOP as broodmares,” one X user wrote.

Another remarked: “Calling step-mom Kamala Harris a childless cat lady is going to enrage not just single women but all the parents of step-kids who are having their parenting denigrated. Vance’s history of misogyny is just an endless wellspring of hate to highlight.”

Yet another sarcastically wrote that Vance’s comment “Should really help win over women voters, huh?”

Vance in 2021 called Harris one of a few ‘childless cat ladies’ in the Democrat party (Getty Images)

Although Harris has only been a presidential candidate for a few days — and could become the country’s first Black and Indian woman to become the presidential nominee of a major party — she has already faced a barrage of misogynistic and racist comments from Republicans.

Multiple members of the GOP have referred to her as a “DEI hire,” standing for diversity, equity and inclusion — and a former Trump aide said she was “colored.”

Others have claimed she has a “low IQ” — while the former president has called her “dumb as a rock.”

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