JD Vance Calls “Childless Cat Ladies” Comment Boneheaded

In a new book set to be released Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance acknowledges that calling Kamala Harris and other Democratic women “childless cat ladies” was “boneheaded,” describing the remark as intentionally provocative and conceding he regrets how it was

Vice President JD Vance is walking back one of the sharpest lines of his political brand, and he’s doing it in print—admitting in his new book that the “childless cat ladies” attack was “boneheaded.”

In “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith. ” which is set to be released Tuesday. Vance writes that denigrating former Vice President Kamala Harris and other women in the Democratic Party as “childless cat ladies” was “one of the dumbest things I ever said.” In a passage excerpted by NBC News. Vance says he argued that “‘childless cat ladies’ across the Democrat Party were running our country into the ground. ” and calls that moment a mistake.

The vice president describes how the comment ricocheted into politics twice—first when he made it and again years later. “The comment caused two firestorms: the first when I made it. the second years later during a political campaign. ” Vance said. framing the remark as “intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.”.

He made the anti-cat-lady crack in a 2021 speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference. singling out Harris as part of the “childless left. ” adding that they have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.” The phrasing was always likely to travel beyond the room where he delivered it. It did—then resurfaced during the 2024 election, where it sparked backlash.

At the time, Vance defended the line to Megyn Kelly as “a sarcastic comment,” while insisting he has nothing against cats or dogs. “People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, I’m sorry, it’s true,” he said.

His wife, Usha Vance, also tried to blunt the controversy by characterizing the remark as “a quip” that, in her view, was taken out of context and reflected sympathy for parents.

But the defense didn’t settle the issue for Vance himself. In October 2024. he told The New York Times that although he believed in the substance behind the insult. he wished he had phrased it differently. “I think most people who probably have watched this have said something dumb — have said something that they wish they had put differently. ” he said.

What’s changed now is the clarity. In his book, Vance doesn’t just suggest the comment was clumsy—he calls it one of the worst things he’s ever said, and he ties his apology to the mechanics of how it worked: he says it was built to provoke, not to inform.

In “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith. ” set for release Tuesday. the vice president is effectively arguing that the point he wanted to make has never been the problem as much as the language he used to make it. His earlier line—aimed at Harris and framed as part of a broader complaint about the Democratic Party—kept finding a new audience. Now. Vance is asking that audience to look at the moment again. and to see the mistake he says he made while saying it.

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