CNN
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Republican Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance’s Way of Phrase His Criticism of “Childless Cat Lady” (a phrase that took on new life when President Donald Trump nominated the Ohio senator as his running mate) said, “It’s stupid.”
“I wish I had said it differently,” Vance said in an interview with The New York Times published Saturday.
But Vance said he stands by the points he made as a U.S. Senate candidate in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson discussing Democratic leaders, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I do not intend to criticize people who cannot have children for medical or social reasons,” he said. We are not talking about such people. ”
“What I was ultimately trying to articulate is that I believe our country has become almost pathologically anti-children,” Vance said.
He particularly criticized people who decided not to have children because of climate change, calling such decisions “very crazy” and “sociopathic.”
“I think that’s a strange way of thinking about the future. Do we not want to have children because of concerns about climate change? Even stranger is the fact that I encourage young women, and frankly young men, to think that way. I think it’s our leadership,” Vance said. “What if your political philosophy says, ‘We’re not going to do that because we’re concerned about climate change?'” Well, I think that’s a really, really crazy way of thinking about the world. ”
In a 2021 interview with Carlson, Vance specifically mentioned Harris, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, saying, “The entire future of the Democratic Party is controlled by people who don’t have children.” ”
In an interview with the New York Times, he recanted that label from Harris, describing the vice president as a “good stepmother.”
“She hasn’t yet jumped over the idea that we shouldn’t have children because of climate change. But I think some of her interviews have suggested that there’s some rationality to that view. . But again, I don’t think that’s a reasonable view,” Vance said.
Vance also argued that there is a new “pathological frustration with children” in American society, citing negative reactions toward children on public transportation and in restaurants as examples. He also pointed out that children are required to wear masks at school during the coronavirus pandemic, saying schools are ignoring “parental perspectives.”
“The main way that 3-year-olds understand language development is by looking at the nonverbal expressions that accompany language development. Are we erasing children’s language and social development completely? Many My parents thought so.”
A year before he ran for public office, Vance also made another controversial statement in an October 2014 email to a former friend and law school classmate in the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown. He also defended his comments.
“I hate the police, and given the number of negative experiences I’ve had over the past few years, I can’t imagine what a black man must go through,” Vance wrote in the email, adding that his former partner It became public after classmate Sophia Nelson shared it with the media.
Mr. Vance told the New York Times that his comments did not reflect his broader views at the time, but that he had been involved in an encounter with police during a carjacking in San Francisco, where he was working as a venture capitalist. He said that it was because he had a bad experience. .
“There was a break-in in the car I was traveling in and it was stupid,” he said, adding that he had left his wife Usha’s suitcase in the car.
“There were a lot of things that were absolutely priceless. We paid a lot of money, so I’m not talking about priceless, but there was something that her grandmother bought in India and gave to her on the morning of the wedding. Necklaces, things like that were stolen,” he said.
He likened the police response to a scene from the movie “The Big Lebowski.” It’s the scene where the main character’s car is stolen and trashed, and a police officer who asks if he has any clues blows him away.
“Do you think this is representative of my views on police in 2016 or 2014 or when I sent that email? No, of course not. Send: ‘Hey, I’m angry about this,”’ Vance said.
Vance said abortion rights protections were made possible by former President Donald Trump’s nomination of three conservatives to the high court after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade’s abortion rights protections in 2022. said voters “instinctively distrust” Republicans on this issue.
“From there,” he said, seeing his party’s position defeated in a number of statewide referendums on the issue, including his home state of Ohio, which approved a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights in 2023. The conclusion we have to draw is that we lost.” The trust of the American people. ”
Vance said Republicans need to win over voters by supporting what he calls pro-family policies, such as fertility treatment, lower child care costs and helping young families buy homes.
He also said it’s a “different world” now and that Republicans will have to endure some states enacting more progressive laws, going beyond the previous step of outlawing abortion nationwide. withdrew its support.
“President Trump and I have said, yes, these issues can be thorny at times. For example, California having a different abortion policy than Alabama makes it a little unusual. But sometimes democracy is tricky. We want to preserve the right for states to make these decisions,” Vance said.
He added: “I agree with the states making these decisions, even if they make decisions that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump might not make.”
