WASHINGTON ― Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom.
In a speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference, Vance specifically named Harris in a tirade against the “childless left” who have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.” He lumped the vice president in with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“Why is this just a normal fact of … life, for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring?” Vance said.
Days later, the Ohio Republican doubled down on his attacks on childless Democrats in an interview with then-Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
“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.
“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,” he said. “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.”
In one fell swoop, Vance baselessly maligned huge swaths of Americans. Millions of people don’t — or can’t — have children. Plenty of others have adorable cats. They are not living in misery, and they have just as much a stake in America’s future as anyone. Even uglier, the Ohio Republican appeared to make a homophobic knock on Buttigieg, who is gay, by referring to him as one of these supposed childless cat ladies.
And the reality is that Harris is a stepmother, known within her family as “Momala” to her two step-children with her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff. Buttigieg, meanwhile, has gushed about his two kids — twins! — whom he and his husband adopted in August 2021.
Ocasio-Cortez fired back at Vance, who previously worked in venture capital with billionaire Republican Peter Thiel, after his 2021 comments on Fox News.
“When you accidentally let your billionaire funder-talk slip out on TV, you say things like ‘a healthy ruling class,’” she wrote on social media at the time.
Aides to Trump’s campaign and Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Vance’s attacks on people without children.
HuffPost readers: Are you a childless cat lady? Do you feel like you don’t have a direct stake in America’s future? Tell us about it ― email jen.bendery@huffpost.com. Please include your phone number if you’re willing to be interviewed.