JD Vance. Photo: AFP
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said the way he phrased his criticism of "childless cat ladies" - comments that took on new life when Donald Trump tapped the Ohio senator as his running mate - was "dumb".
"I certainly wish that I had said it differently," Vance said in an interview with The New York Times published Saturday.
But Vance said he stood by the point he made as a US Senate candidate in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson discussing leaders of the Democratic Party, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
He said he did not intend to criticise those who couldn't have children "for medical reasons, for social reasons - like set that to the side; we're not talking about folks like that".
"What I was definitely trying to illustrate ultimately in a very inarticulate way is that I do think that our country has become almost pathologically anti-child," Vance said.
He specifically criticised those who have decided against having children because of climate change, describing such a decision as "very deranged" and "sociopathic".
"I think that is a bizarre way of thinking about the future. Not to have kids because of concerns over climate change? I think the more bizarre thing is our leadership, who encourages young women, and frankly young men, to think about it that way," Vance said. "If your political philosophy is saying, 'Don't do that because of concerns over climate change?' Yeah, I think that's a really, really crazy way to think about the world."
In the 2021 interview with Carlson, Vance specifically mentioned Harris, New York Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg before saying that "the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children".
He backed away from using that label for Harris in his interview with The New York Times, describing the vice president as a "good stepmother".
"She hasn't quite jumped over the, 'You shouldn't have kids because of climate change.' But I think in some of her interviews, she's suggested there's a reasonableness to that perspective. But again, I don't think that's a reasonable perspective," Vance said.
Vance also claimed a new "pathological frustration with children" exists in American society, citing negative reactions to children on public transportation or restaurants as an example. He also pointed to children being required to wear masks at school during the coronavirus pandemic, and said schools dismissed "parental perspective".
"The main way that three-year-olds pick up on language development is they see the nonverbal expression that comes along with it. Are we completely obliterating the language and social development of children? A lot of parents were thinking that," he said.
'I hate police'
Vance also defended another controversial comment, this one years before he ran for public office: an October 2014 email to a former friend and law school classmate, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Michael Brown.
"I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I've had in the past few years, I can't imagine what a black guy goes through," Vance wrote in that email, which became public when his former classmate Sophia Nelson shared them with media.
Vance told The New York Times that his comment wasn't reflective of his broader views at the time, but said it was influenced by a negative experience with the police when his car was broken into in San Francisco, where he worked as a venture capitalist.
"There was a break-in, in the car that I had. And it was stupid," he said, adding that he'd left his wife Usha's suitcase in the car.
"It had a ton of like, completely priceless things. I'm not talking about priceless, as in we paid a lot of money, but the necklace her grandmother gave her that she bought in India that she gave her on the morning of our wedding - things like that were stolen," he said.
He compared the reaction of police to a scene in the movie, The Big Lebowski in which the main character's car is stolen and trashed and an officer blows him off when he asks whether they are pursuing any leads.
"Do I think it was representative of my views of the police writ large in 2016 or 2014 or whenever I sent that email? No, of course not. You send something to a friend: 'Hey, I'm pissed off about this,'" Vance said.
'Different world' on abortion
Vance said in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2022 reversal of Roe vs Wade's abortion rights protections - one made possible by former President Donald Trump's nomination of three conservatives to the high court - voters have "instinctively mistrusted" Republicans on the issue.
He said after seeing the party's position lose 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 that we should take from that is we've lost the trust of the American people".
Vance said Republicans must earn voters' support by backing what he described as pro-family measures, including fertility treatments, lowering the costs of raising children and helping young families afford homes.
He also backed away from his previous support for outlawing abortion nationally, saying that it's a "different world" now and that Republicans must live with some states enacting more progressive laws.
"President Trump and I are saying, yes, sometimes these issues are messy. Sometimes, it's going to be a little unusual for, say, California to have a different abortion policy than Alabama. But democracy is sometimes messy. We want to preserve the right of the states to make these decisions," Vance said.
He added: "I'm OK with the states making these decisions, even if they make decisions that JD Vance or Donald Trump might not make."
- CNN