Vance revisits the cat lady’s ‘dumb’ comment
Vice President JD Vance admits his ‘cat girls are childless’ in 2021 were ‘silly’ words that offended people and detracted from his message on the ‘Hang Out with Sean Hannity’ podcast.
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Vice President JD Vance admitted that his controversial “infertile women” comments were “tone deaf” to his message to American families.
Speaking on the “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” podcast, Vance revealed the impact the insult had and the message he was trying to convey.
“I mean it was dumb, because it pissed off so many people that they didn’t listen to the point,” Vance said.
“The point I was making is, when you are a politician, a political leader, when a media person speaks, you try to enlighten and try to make people think. It upset many people so much that it turned off the thinking part of their brain,” he added.
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Vice President JD Vance visits “Hannity” with host Sean Hannity at the Fox News Channel Studios on June 15, 2026 in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
Vance said this in 2021 when he said the country is run by Democrats and “a bunch of childless cat women who are sad about their lives and the choices they’ve made, so they want to make the whole country miserable.”
He also called then-Vice President Kamala Harris, then-Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying that the future of the party is built by people without children. Harris is a stepmother of two. Buttigieg welcomed the twins later that year.
At the time, the comments sparked a strong backlash from liberal feminists, including Taylor Swift, who later endorsed Harris for president as a self-described “Childless Cat Lady.”
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Vice President JD Vance and Usha Vance and their children walk across the stage during the Army’s 250th birthday celebration on the National Mall on June 14, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Doug Mills – Pool/Getty Images)
Vance told Hannity that the point of the speech was that the country has become “very hostile to families, especially families with young children.” She revealed her own struggles with parenting, and the attitudes she sees around her young family in places like airplanes or restaurants.
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“You see how people make fun of young mothers on the plane, or I’ve seen this in many different ways. It’s hard to take it at this point, even with all the advantages we have of being the vice president, it’s painful to take three children to a restaurant,” he said, adding, “It’s something [going to] it would be very difficult to take four children to a restaurant.”
Vice President JD Vance and his family, including wife Usha Vance and their three children, pose for a photo outside the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, on April 23, 2025. (Kenny Holston/Pool via Reuters)
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The vice president also talked about mask orders for young children during the COVID-19 crisis, which was still prevalent when he made his first impression.
“Why did we keep putting masks on toddlers? Like, I don’t mean two months into it. A year and a half into this epidemic, when we knew it was affecting their development, their learning, their language. Why are we doing that?” Vance asked. “Because we did not have the opinion of young parents in the leadership of our country.”
