In an interview with The New York Times published Saturday, Ohio Sen. JD Vance defended the substance of his controversial remark about “childless cat ladies” — but said he wishes he had worded it differently.
Comments Vance made about women during his 2021 Senate campaign have resurfaced in the wake of his selection as Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee. In one Fox News segment that year, Vance dismissed Vice President Kamala Harris as one of the “childless cat ladies” who are “miserable” with their lives.
“I think most people who probably have watched this have said something dumb — have said something that they wish they had put differently,” he told the Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Saturday.
But he defended the idea that there’s a “pathological frustration” with children in U.S. society, and said it was “deranged” to choose not to have kids due to climate change concerns.
For a decade, Americans have had fewer children, in part due to factors including economic insecurity, political uncertainty, shifting gender norms and a lessening stigma around not having kids.
According to a 2021 global survey of young people between the ages of 16 and 25, published in The Lancet, half of the Americans surveyed said they felt “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change, and nearly 4 out of 10 said they were “hesitant” to have children because of it.
“That is a bizarre way of thinking about the future,” Vance told the Times. “Not to have kids because of concerns over climate change? I think the more bizarre thing is our leadership, who encourages young women, and, frankly young men, to think about it that way.”
“I should have put this in a better way,” he said. “But the point still remains.”
The comments appear to be the first time the vice presidential nominee, who has repeatedly doubled down on what he said in 2021, has expressed some remorse for his comments.
Initially, he had said that the “cat ladies” remark was “sarcastic,” and that people were missing his point. During a “Meet the Press” interview in August, Vance said that he has lots of regrets, but the “childless cat ladies” joke “is not at the top 10 of the list.”