JD Vance on 'childless cat ladies' controversy: "This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming antifamily and antichildren"

After a week of controversy, full of criticism and third-party defenses, JD Vance came out to defend his comment that "childless cat ladies" had too much presence in American politics. A snippet of the words from three years ago, taken out of context, went viral. Actress Jennifer Aniston and Kamala Harris' daughter, Ella Emhoff, were among the well-known figures who came out to rebuke Vance's comment.

On Friday, the Ohio senator dismissed the criticism, saying his words had been taken out of context. Vance said the comment had been sarcastic and insisted in the same tone, "Obviously, I have nothing against cats." He also pointed out that what was important was the argument he was making: parents need to have a greater say in politics. 

"The simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way," he stated on The Megyn Kelly Show.  "I explicitly said in my remarks, despite the fact the media has lied about this, that this is not about criticizing people who for various reasons didn't have kids. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child."

The candidate doubled down on his social media with a post on X in which he took aim at the Harris campaign for taking a stand against helping families: 

Kelley also took to his networks to defend the Republican:

Answering Aniston

The aspirant for vice president also dedicated a few words to Jennifer Aniston, who posted on her Instagram account that she prayed that the politician's daughter would be "fortunate" to be able to have children of her own someday. "I hope she doesn't have to resort to in vitro fertilization as a second option, because you'll be trying to take that away from her too," she wrote in words picked up by Variety. Aniston has spoken in the past about her own struggles to get pregnant and her journey with IVF. 

Vance replied Friday that the actress's comment was "disgusting" because his daughter (Mirabel, the youngest of his three children) is only two years old. “And secondly, if she had fertility problems, as I said in that speech, I would try everything I could to try to help her because I think families and babies are a good thing," he said.