Republican VP candidate JD Vance hit back at Jennifer Aniston after she slammed him over his resurfaced complaint about ‘childless cat ladies’ running the country.
Vance appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show on Friday to defend the anti-feline statement made in 2021 – which has spawned massive backlash from cat lovers across the country.
The Ohio senator claimed that women without kids don’t have a ‘direct stake’ in the future of America, saying they are ‘miserable at their own lives and their choices’.
His comments provoked the ire of Aniston, 55, who said: ‘Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,’ she said. ‘I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.’
In response, Vance said: ‘That’s disgusting because my daughter is 2 years old.’
Vance appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show on Friday to defend his comments that he made to Fox in 2021 that has been recirculating online
His comments provoked the ire of Aniston, 55, who is seen here in New York City on July 27
‘And second of all, if she had fertility problems, as I said in that speech, I would try everything I could to try to help her because I believe families and babies are a good thing,’ he added.
The resurrected footage saw Vance criticizing childless women such as Kamala Harris while speaking to Tucker Carlson on Fox News.
In the clip, Vance slammed the prospect of turning the country over to childless women.
He said: ‘I’m saying that we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and they choices they made so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.
‘It’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.
Vance’s wife Usha is seen here with their daughter Mirabel in a post to his Instagram page
‘How does it make any sense that we have turned our country over to people that don’t have any stake in it?’
Aniston wasn’t the only person upset by Vance’s remarks. Democratic women across the country immediately ran to Harris’ defense, launching a Childless Cat Ladies for Kamala meme.
‘My cats and I are MORE than ready to do everything we can to elect President Kamala Harris! #YesWeKam,’ one supporter wrote on X/Twitter.
The ‘childless’ jab also garnered a response from Ella Emhoff, the vice president’s step-daughter, who wrote on Instagram: ‘How can you be “childless” when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I.’
Ella Emhoff was referring to her brother, and Harris’ step-son, Cole. Ella and Cole are the children of Harris husband, Doug Emhoff, and his ex-wife Kerstin, who also came to Harris’ defense.
‘These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,’ Kerstin said. ‘She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.’
Vance’s cat controversy comes amid reports that Republicans have soured on Trump’s VP pick.
‘If you had a time machine, if you go back two weeks, would [Trump] have picked JD Vance again? I doubt it,’ conservative commentator Ben Shapiro said.
During his Friday appearance on The Megyn Kelly show, Vance responded: ‘Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats, I’ve got nothing against dogs, I’ve got one dog at home, and I love him.
‘But look, people are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said.’
Vance claimed that both liberal and conservative women responded to the cat comments by saying they were ‘glad’ he pointed out there’s ‘something profoundly anti-family in our public policy.’
He tried to pin that on Democrats’ policies.
‘We have to ask ourselves, Why do we have masking of toddlers years after the pandemic ended?’ he mused.
Vance also claimed that the Harris campaign came out against the extension of the child tax credit.
‘Why do we have the Harris campaign coming out this very morning and saying that we should not have the child tax credit which lowers tax rates for parents of young children?’ the VP hopeful said. That claim appears to be false.
The Biden administration’s current position is that the White House is ‘committed to restoring the American Rescue Plan’s critical expansion of the Child Tax Credit to lift up all American families and children.’
Vance voted against the Democrat-led Right to IVF Act last month, though was supportive of a GOP-sponsored bill, the IVF Protection Act, which would strip states of Medicaid funding if they barred IVF treatments, though would allow for some restrictions.
During his Q&A with Kelly, Vance explained that he was for IVF within reason.
‘I think we have to protect the rights of Christian hospitals to operate the way that they want to operate,’ he said. ‘But of course, that’s totally consistent with promoting fertility treatments for parents who need it.’
