Usha Vance defends husband’s ‘childless cat ladies’ comment as a ‘quip’
In a sit-down interview with Fox News on Monday, Usha Vance argued her husband’s past comments, which have received renewed scrutiny since he joined former President Donald Trump’s presidential ticket, were in service of an argument about the challenges facing parents and the role government plays in parents’ lives.
“The reality is, JD made a quote – I mean, he made a quip, and he made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive,” she said. “And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase.”
“What he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country, and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder,” she continued.
Usha Vance said she believes her husband “would never” intend to offend people who are struggling to have children while acknowledging that some people choose not to start families for “very good” reasons.
“JD, absolutely at the time and today, would never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family, who really was struggling with that,” she said. “I also understand there are a lot of other reasons why people may choose not to have families, and many of those reasons are very good.”
Usha Vance insisted that her husband, who repeatedly made disparaging comments about childless adults in interviews, campaign appearances and fundraising emails while targeting Democratic officials, was attempting to have “a real conversation” about how government can help parents raise their children.
A CNN KFile review of multiple similar remarks from JD Vance underscores how the “childless cat ladies” comment was part of a broader pattern of him pressing the culture war by, in part, singling out Democratic leaders for not having children.
In November 2020, for example, JD Vance said on a conservative podcast that childless Americans, especially those in the country’s “leadership class,” were “more sociopathic” than those with children and made the country “less mentally stable.” Vance added that the “most deranged” and “most psychotic” commentators on Twitter – now known as X - were typically childless.
“Let’s try to look at the real conversation that he’s trying to have,” Usha Vance said Monday, “and engage with it and understand for those of us who do have families, for the many of us who want to have families, and for whom it’s really hard, what can we do to make it better.”
"Usha Vance mentioned that her husband's comments, often criticized for being disparaging towards childless adults, were actually aimed at addressing the challenges parents face in the context of politics and government policies."
"During her interview, Usha Vance emphasized the need for a deeper discussion on politics, focusing on how policies can support parents and families, instead of getting caught up in specific phraseologies or comments."
