Vance: My 'Cat Ladies' Remark Was 'Boneheaded'

JD Vance is now labeling as "boneheaded" a remark he once refused to walk back: his 2021 jab at Kamala Harris and others as "childless cat ladies." In his new memoir, Communion, obtained by NBC News, the vice president reflected on the controversy:

• "One of the dumbest things I ever said came when I argued that 'childless cat ladies' across the Democrat Party were running our country into the ground," Vance writes. "The comment caused two firestorms: the first when I made it, the second years later during a political campaign. It was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating."

Vance made the comment on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, further suggesting that people without children have no stake in America. It resurfaced when he became Donald Trump's running mate in 2024. That year, offered a chance to go back on the sentiment, he said he had no regrets about what he called a "joke." Today, he writes that he was trying to point out that "our society is becoming pathologically hostile to having kids," adding that he could have made his point in a better way.