Vance effort to retract 'sexist' remark ripped: 'No problem with the cats, just the women'

26 July 2024

A comment Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) made in a 2021 interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has caused a significant headache for former President Donald Trump's campaign, and now Vance is trying to walk back his comments. But in doing so, he may have made the 2024 GOP ticket's woman problem even worse.

In the interview, Vance attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) primarily on the basis that they don't have biological children (Harris is a stepmother and Buttigieg and his husband adopted two children in 2021). Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared the clip on social media earlier this week and sarcastically referred to the 2024 GOP vice presidential nominee as a "normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn't hate women having freedoms."

"We are 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 told Carlson. "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?"

After Clinton's post sparked significant blowback online, Vance attempted to explain his remarks in an interview with SiriusXM radio host Megyn Kelly.

"Obviously it was a sarcastic comment," Vance said. "I’ve got nothing against cats. ... People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance … and the substance of what I said, Megyn — I’m sorry, it is true."

Vance's effort to walk back the remark kicked off a flurry of tweets further castigating him, with many noticing that the Ohio senator apologized to cats, but not women. University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman wondered why Vance had "nothing against cats" but appeared to double down on what he said about women without biological children. Columnist Dan Savage opined that "it's ladies [Vance] can't stand," rather than felines.

Tim Miller — who writes for the Never Trump conservative website the Bulwark — characterized Vance's comments as "the clean up [being] worse than the spill." And while Vance insinuated that the "substance" of his remarks was being ignored for the "sarcasm," Vox correspondent Zack Beauchamp countered: "Vance doesn’t understand that the 'substance' of what he said *is* the problem."

"JD has no problem with the cats, just the women," journalist Emily Singer tweeted.

Other social media users opined that Trump elevating the Ohio Republican to the VP slot was a tremendous blunder given his baggage. Filmmaker Randy Wilkins called Vance "the dumbest and most incompetent VP pick ever," and "a garbage human being to top it off." Journalist Tim Alberta, who writes for the Atlantic, noted that Republicans in particular told him that Trump selecting Vance as his running mate was "the biggest misstep of his political career."

"Stick a fork in this guy," Democratic strategist Paul Bologna tweeted.

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