Three more Fox interviews where Vance lashed out at “childless” Democrats like VP Harris
Written by Matt Gertz
Published
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has tried to defuse the firestorm over his 2021 remark about “childless cat ladies” by claiming that Democrats have taken him out of context. But in three separate Fox News interviews from the same period resurfaced by Media Matters, Vance repeated versions of the attack as he sought to bolster his Ohio Senate primary campaign by appealing to his party’s demagogues.
Vance’s comment that the United States is run by “childless cat ladies” like Vice President Kamala Harris, who he claimed control the Democratic Party but “don't really have a direct stake” in the country’s future, triggered a wave of revulsion and opprobrium when it resurfaced last week. (Harris, in fact, is a stepmother of two.) He offered the remark during a July 29, 2021, interview with the then-Fox host Tucker Carlson and has since tried to clean up the mess by telling right-wing interviewers that Democrats took him out of context.
But Media Matters has identified three more Fox interviews in late July and early August of 2021 in which Vance similarly attacked Democrats for being “childless.”
Vance claimed during those appearances that “the left has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people”; argued that this purported phenomenon ensures that the Democratic Party is “dominated by a bunch of sociopaths who don’t care about America’s children”; and told “Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth” to “have your own kids” and “lay off of mine.”
The night after he attacked Democratic “childless cat ladies” on Carlson’s show, Vance returned to the network and told Fox News Primetime host Tammy Bruce that he was “sick of these bureaucrats experimenting on my children” by requiring kids to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and recommending masking in schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vance added: “That's experimenting on our kids. If you want to experiment on somebody's kids, Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth, have your own kids — lay off of mine.”
Citation From the July 30, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox News Primetime
TAMMY BRUCE (HOST): Tell me how the vaccine passport mandate framework fits into that. And you heard my monologue if that's just one piece, isn't it to everything they want to do?
JD VANCE: Yes, that's exactly right, Tammy. You know, I'm running for Senate from Ohio to fight back against this stuff. Go to jdvance.com if you're interested in helping out. But the simple fact is, we cannot let the government or these corporations turn people into second class citizens unless they bend the knee and do what these institutions tell them to do.
This is about bodily autonomy. This is about doing what you want to do with your own family with your own rights. And the simple fact is, look, I'm pro vaccine, especially for those who are affected by COVID, the elderly and the sick and so forth.
But you should have the choice on whether to take a brand new vaccine that has a mortality rate if you're young, that in some cases is not as bad as the seasonal flu. And the thing that I hate most about this Tammy, I've got a four year old and a one year old boy, I am sick of these bureaucrats experimenting on my children because that's what they're doing.
The long term lockdowns, the long term masking of kids, so they can't see other kids' smile that's experimenting on our kids if you want to experiment on somebody's kids, Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth, have your own kids lay off of mine.
The following week, on the August 4, 2021, edition of Fox News Primetime, Vance told host Ben Domenech that Democrats “feel comfortable experimenting on children” because they are “increasingly the party in the movement that doesn't have kids.” Vance argued that this situation distorts the party’s views on face masks and on immigration, saying, “If you're a childless adult living in New York City, you probably care more about your house cleaner than you do about the children of America.”
“But if you’re a parent, and you see the effect that this nonstop lockdown and masking has on kids, then you’re going to care more about the kids,” he added. “I think basically what we’ve done is that we’ve allowed the Democrats to become dominated by a bunch of sociopaths who don’t care about America’s children. And we just need to call it out.”
Citation From the August 4, 2021, edition of Fox News' Fox News Primetime
BEN DOMENECH (HOST): What are your thoughts on the general tenor of the left when it comes to their opposition to Americans having more children?
JD VANCE: Yes, thanks for having me, Ben. If folks want to help out, please go to jdvance.com. And my basic view on this is that the left feels comfortable experimenting on children with the lock downs, the mask mandates and just their general approach to public policy, because they're increasingly the party in the movement that doesn't have kids. And I look at the way that they think about, for example, whether we should mask children or whether we should actually secure the southern border. If you're a childless adult living New York City, you probably care more about your house cleaner than you do about the children of America.
But if you're a parent, and you see the effect that this nonstop lockdown and masking has on kids, then you're going to care more about the kids. I think basically what we've done is that we've allowed the Democrats to become dominated by a bunch of sociopaths who don't care about America's children. And we just need to call it out. Kudos to you for calling it out all of us need to say the obvious that this is a movement that is too invested in nothing, because they're not invested in the future, in this country's children.
On Fox’s The Next Revolution that Sunday, Vance told host Steve Hilton that he supported giving parents extra votes to represent their children. He explained that this would counterbalance “the left,” which he said “has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people, by the AOCs of the world, the Kamala Harrises of the world. Those people now run the agenda of the Democratic Party, and we’ve got to push back against that.”
Citation From the August 8, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Next Revolution.
JD VANCE: I actually suggested this idea that's become popular in some other countries, where you give families more of a voting stake in the country. Let's say, you're a family with five children, maybe you should have the right to represent those children at the ballot box if you're a parent than if you're just a single person living in New York City or San Francisco or, you know, one of our urban centers.
I think, basically, the idea is that we want to give families more power in this country because what's happened is the left has effectively been taken over by a lot of childless people, by the AOCs of the world, the Kamala Harrises of the world, those people now run the agenda of the Democratic Party, and we've got to push back against that and say, we need to be a pro-family country.
People don't like that. They say that it's you know, a culture war, a distraction, whatever the case may be. I find it hilarious that the culture war is something they bring up only when conservatives are actually fighting for their values, not when the left is fighting for theirs.
Vance fundraised off of his Fox comments about “childless cat ladies” with campaign emails disparaging “radical childless leaders” and “childless sociopaths” in the Democratic Party who “don't have a direct stake” in the country, CNN's KFile reported. Vance offered similar arguments in contemporaneous interviews on the Moment of Truth podcast and the Breitbart News Daily program, as Media Matters documented. He also repeatedly attacked Democratic “cat ladies” on Twitter.