WASHINGTON ― Arizona Republican congressional candidate Blake Masters in 2021 criticized women who have cats but who are not married and do not have children, calling it “sick” and “demented.”
In a newly unearthed video, Masters, then 35, laments that most of his peers from Stanford Law School are not married, don’t have kids and are not on track to own a home.
“That’s obviously bad,” Masters said in remarks at a Republicans for National Renewal event in December 2021. “There’s something very dysfunctional about that.”
He went on to specifically attack “the cat ladies.”
“I think it’s a sick kind of cope; they try to brag about this,” said the Arizona Republican. “You see the cat ladies just kind of say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be married. Marriage is a construct of the patriarchy. Right? I don’t want to have children. Why would you have children? Having children is bad for the environment.’ And that’s demented.”
Masters added that “what’s really sad” is what’s behind the ideology he believes is leading people to choose not to get married or make babies.
“How does this become the new normal?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, the answer in one word is progressivism.”
A Masters campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Here’s the video clip of Masters’ remarks:
Masters’ comments are obviously offensive for a number of reasons, the least of which is his suggestion that something is wrong with women who choose to live with adorable pets instead of getting married and having children.
But his criticisms take on new relevance as Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, JD Vance, faces fire for his past criticisms of “childless cat ladies,” saying they are “miserable” and have no direct stake in America’s future. He included Vice President Kamala Harris in his attacks on this group, despite the fact that Harris does have children.
“We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, 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,” Vance said in 2021.
“It’s just a basic fact: You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he added. “And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people that don’t have a direct stake in it?”
Harris has two stepchildren in her marriage to Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, one of whom personally fired back at Vance over his comments.
Vance, who is a U.S. senator from Ohio, has drawn the wrath of women everywhere for his comments. Celebrities have ripped him for insulting women who have struggled with infertility or who have simply chosen cats over kids. Other women have proudly posted photos of their cats on social media or pictures of pop star Taylor Swift with her cats.
Vance has had a chance to walk back his remarks. But he’s doubled down.
“People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry, it’s true,” he said in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
Mario Tama via Getty Images
Masters has defended Vance’s attacks on Harris as being “childless,” suggesting it’s not possible for political leaders to relate to people with families if they don’t have biological children of their own.
“Political leaders should have children. Certainly they should at least be married. If you aren’t running or can’t run a household of your own, how can you relate to a constituency of families or govern wisely with respect to future generations?” he wrote Wednesday on social media. “Skin in the game matters.”
Masters, a venture capitalist and protégé of billionaire Peter Thiel, ran for Senate in 2022 but lost to Sen. Mark Kelly (D). He’s now running for Congress in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. It’s a solidly red district, and Masters is currently leading in the polls against his GOP opponent, Abe Hamadeh.
Politically, Masters is aligned with extremists in his party. He supports a national ban on abortion, fuels conspiracy theories and on Monday touted an endorsement by conservative agitator Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, a nationwide organization of Republican students that is known for fanning white supremacy and bigotry.
Until Sunday, Masters had been endorsed by Vance, and Hamadeh had been endorsed by Trump. But in a weird move, Trump declared on Sunday that he’s endorsing both of them.
“They will both be spectacular, and I’m pleased to announce that both Blake Masters and Abe Hamadeh have my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Congressman of Arizona’s 8th Congressional District — THEY WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!” Trump screamed in a post on social media.
Arizona’s primary elections are Tuesday.