VP candidate Vance hits back at Aniston, defends ‘childless cat ladies’ remarks

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential candidate, struck back at “Friends” actress Jennifer Aniston after she criticized him for his past complaint that the nation was governed by “childless cat ladies,” including Vice President Kamala Harris.

Vance, appearing on “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM on Friday, bristled at the bipartisan backlash to his comments, which were made to Fox News in 2021 but have received fresh attention as he hits the campaign trail as former President Donald Trump’s newly minted running mate.

He was responding to an Instagram post Wednesday by Aniston that condemned his comments. In the post, which drew widespread attention, the actress, who has been open about her fertility struggles, wrote, “Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.”

Vance, whom Trump selected as his running mate nearly two weeks ago, said that bringing up his daughter was out of bounds.

“Hollywood celebrities say, ‘Oh, well, JD Vance, what if your daughter suffered fertility problems?’” Vance said. “Well, first of all, that’s disgusting because my daughter is 2 years old. And second of all, if she had fertility problems, as I said in that speech, I would try everything I could to try to help her because I believe families and babies are a good thing.”

Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee after Joe President Biden dropped out of the race, has a stepson and a stepdaughter.

In a clip from the resurfaced July 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, who was then a Fox News host, Vance groused that the country was run by Democrats and corporate oligarchs who were “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.” At the time, he was running for the Senate and pointed to several Democrats whom he said did not have children, including Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary. Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, welcomed twins about a month after Vance’s comments.

“The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” Vance said. “And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

Vance contended Friday that the “cat ladies” comment was taken out of context and that he was not criticizing women who don’t have children. He said that he was trying to argue that Democrats were “anti-family.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.