It’s been a few years since Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance said the United States is “run by childfree, cat-loving women,” but the remark has become a hot topic since former President Donald Trump chose the Ohio senator as his running mate for the 2024 presidential election last week.
The remarks, made during an interview on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that aired on Fox News in July 2021, infuriated people on both sides of the aisle and sparked backlash from celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Whoopi Goldberg and “The View” co-star Alyssa Farrah Griffin.
“This country is effectively run by childless catwomen who are unhappy with their lives and the choices they’ve made, so they want to make the whole country unhappy too,” Vance told Carlson. “This is a basic fact: If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the future of the Democratic Party is entirely controlled by childfree people.”
He added: “What does it mean to hand our country over to people who have no real direct stake in it?”
Vice President Harris, who President Joe Biden endorsed as the Democratic presidential nominee, is stepmother to her husband Douglas Emhoff and his children, Cole and Ella Emhoff, with his ex-wife Kirsten Emhoff. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, welcomed twins, Penelope Rose and Joseph August, in September 2021.
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Read on to see which celebrities have spoken out about Vance’s controversial comments.
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JD Vance responds to backlash: ‘It was clearly a sarcastic comment’
Vance spoke about the backlash he’s received in an interview on “The Megyn Kelly Show” posted on Friday.
“Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment,” he said. “I have nothing against cats, I have nothing against dogs…. People are so focused on the sarcasm that they’re not really focusing on what I actually said.”
The vice presidential candidate used the opportunity to reiterate that the Republican Party is the “family-oriented” party and claim that the Democrats are the “party of anti-kids,” citing politicians who have asked children to wear masks during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have celebrities in Hollywood saying, ‘Oh, J.D. Vance, what would you do if your daughter was infertile?’ First of all, that’s horrible, because my daughter is 2 years old,” Vance says. “Secondly, if she was infertile … I would do everything I could to help her, because I believe in families and babies.”
He said he wished Harris “the best of luck,” as he “has a wonderful family.”
Jennifer Aniston: “I can’t believe that’s what a vice presidential candidate says”
Aniston made a rare political statement on her Instagram Story on Wednesday.
“I honestly can’t believe the next vice presidential candidate of the United States would say something like this,” the “Friends” star wrote, along with a screenshot of a social media post featuring the Fox News video.
She added, “All I can say is … Mr. Vance, I hope your daughter is lucky enough to have her own child one day. I hope she doesn’t have to turn to IVF as a second option, because you’re trying to take that option away from her as well.”
The actor may have been referring to the failure of the IVF Bill of Rights to pass the U.S. Senate in June after a majority of Republican senators voted against the measure.
In 2022, Aniston spoke about her struggles with fertility treatments in a cover story for Allure magazine.
“I was trying to get pregnant,” she recalled of her late 30s and 40s. “For me, the road to having a baby was a challenging one.”
She added: “I did IVF, I did Chinese tea, I did everything. I did everything. If someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs and do this for yourself,’ I would have given anything. I just didn’t think about it. So here I am now. That ship has sailed.”
Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff: ‘I love all three of my parents’
Ella Emhoff, the youngest daughter of second gentleman Doug Emhoff, defended her stepmother Harris in an Instagram Story on Thursday.
“How can you say you don’t have children when you have a beautiful child like Cole and I,” Harris, 25, wrote, along with a screenshot of a CNN broadcast in which her mother called Harris a “loving, nurturing and fiercely protective” co-parent.
“@kemhoff say it louder for the person in the back seat,” Ella Emhoff wrote. “I love you all three parents.”
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Whoopi Goldberg: “How dare you do that?”
On Wednesday’s episode of “The View,” the hosts discussed Vance’s 2021 comments, which Goldberg said “don’t do much to connect with a lot of voters.”
“Your Honor, there are people who, for whatever reason, choose not to have children. There are people who want to have children and can’t. How dare you do that,” Goldberg said. “You’ve never had children. Your wife has had children. But you don’t know anything about this because you’ve never had children. How dare you do that.”
She added: “And what about the ladies? You heard what he thinks of you. This isn’t good for you, JD.”
Goldberg then gave a history lesson, naming presidents who had no children, including George Washington, James Polk, James Buchanan (who was also unmarried) and Andrew Jackson.
“You know who else didn’t have any children? The father of our country, George Washington. But you know what he did? Just like Kamala, he raised Martha’s children. He raised them with her,” Goldberg said.
Griffin, Trump’s former White House communications director, also criticized Vance’s resurfaced interview.
“I’ve heard from a lot of friends and lifelong Republicans that they are very upset about this because for women my age, in their mid-30s, the most common issues that my friends are having are infertility, miscarriage, struggling to get pregnant, wanting to get pregnant but not being able to, or really wanting to get married but not meeting the right person yet,” Griffin said.
“How dare you belittle them and say they are unworthy and that they don’t have a significant role in our society,” she added. “And finally, how dare you criticize women for loving cats? Time magazine has the ultimate amazing cat-loving woman, Taylor Swift, on its cover!”
