CBS NEWS
Washington — Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday when asked about Sen. JD Vance‘s recently resurfaced comment about “childless cat ladies” that “you should never say anything to hurt anybody’s feelings.” But he made clear his support for Vance and the Republican ticket, indicating that former President Donald Trump doesn’t regret selecting Vance as his running mate amid recent backlash.
“You should never say anything to hurt anybody’s feelings, but when you look at all these interviews by JD, he was talking about how the Democratic Party has abandoned the traditional family,” Graham said on “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “This idea of trying to marginalize JD and make him some kind of bad person is not going to work because he’s not a bad person — he’s a good person.”
While running in Ohio for his Senate seat in 2021, Vance said on Fox News that the U.S. was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
He included Vice President Kamala Harris, who does not have biological children but is stepmother to her husband’s two children from a previous marriage. The mother of Harris’ stepchildren as well as Ella Emhoff, one of Harris’ stepchildren, quickly chimed in this week to refute the idea that Harris could be considered “childless.”
Vance defended his comment on Friday, saying in an interview on “The Megyn Kelly Show” on SiriusXM that the comment was sarcastic.
“I’ve got nothing against cats. I’ve got nothing against dogs,” Vance said. “People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said. The substance of what I said, Megyn — I’m sorry, it’s true.”
Vance explained that he was making an argument that Americans have become skeptical — to a point that he described as possibly hateful — about the idea of having children, using prominent elected Democrats who don’t have children as examples. And he reiterated that “it’s not a criticism of people who don’t have children,” but a criticism of the Democratic Party for becoming “anti-family and anti-child.” Still, the comment, and Friday’s explanation, have continued to draw fire in recent days.
Actor Jennifer Aniston, who rarely speaks publicly about politics but has been open about her fertility struggles, criticized Vance’s remarks. She also noted his positions on IVF, saying that she hopes his daughter “is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day” and will not need to turn to the fertility treatments. Vance voted against a legislative package that would have guaranteed a nationwide right to IVF earlier this year, though he signed on to a statement with his GOP colleagues that said they “strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF.” Vance called Aniston’s comments “disgusting” because his daughter is 2 years old.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who also appeared on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, suggested that Trump may consider changing his mind amid the backlash over selecting Vance, whom he called an “incredibly bad choice.”
When asked whether Trump regrets his pick, Graham said “not at all,” adding that Vance “has one of the most compelling stories in American politics” — pointing to his humble beginnings, military background and Yale Law school education.
“I don’t have children, but I’m going to vote for JD and Trump, because I think we’ll be safer and more prosperous and more secure,” the South Carolina Republican said. ” I want to end the Biden-Harris debacle.”
Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.
