JD Vance Calls 'Childless Cat Ladies' Remark "One of the Dumbest Things I Ever Said" in New Memoir

Vice President JD Vance, in his forthcoming memoir Communion, concedes that a 2021 remark likening prominent Democrats to "childless cat ladies" was a mistake he now regards as "one of the dumbest things I ever said." The comment, made during an interview as Vance launched a Senate campaign, resurfaced when he was selected as Donald Trump's 2024 running mate and drew widespread criticism.

A person wears a cat mask during the 51st Annual Halloween Parade in Manhattan on Oct. 31, 2024.Credit: ADAM GRAY/AFP via Getty

What He Said Then—and Now

Vance originally made the comment in a 2021 interview with then–Fox News host Tucker Carlson, arguing that leaders without children lacked a "direct stake" in the nation's future. The line resurfaced in 2024; Vance initially declined to apologize that year, calling it "sarcastic" and saying, "I've got nothing against cats," in an interview with Megyn Kelly.

White House special envoy Steve Witkoff embraces Vice President JD Vance at the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House on Sunday, June 14.Credit: Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty

“One of the dumbest things I ever said came when I argued that ‘childless cat ladies’ across the Democrat Party were running our country into the ground,” Vance writes in Communion, according to NBC News. “It was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.”

Faith, Accountability and the Broader Argument

Communion, Vance's follow-up to his 2016 bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, centers on his conversion to Roman Catholicism and his faith journey. He frames the admission of this error as a lesson learned through his religious convictions: the Church's teaching on the dignity of every life, he writes, made him recognize the comment as disrespectful and distracting from his substantive point.

Second lady Usha Vance and Vice President JD Vance arrive at a military Mother's Day event at the White House on May 6.Credit: Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty

Vance says his broader concern was that American society is becoming "pathologically hostile" to having children and that he wished he had made that argument more clearly and charitably, acknowledging people who do not or cannot have children for many reasons.

Vice President JD Vance greets Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow, at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., on Oct. 29.Credit: JONATHAN ERNST/POOL/AFP via Getty

Context And Personal Details

The memoir notes factual context often cited after the original interview: Kamala Harris has long acted as a stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff's children, and weeks after the Carlson interview, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten Buttigieg adopted twins.

Vance and his wife, Usha Vance—who is Hindu—have three children and are expecting a fourth in July. In Communion's acknowledgements, Vance credits Usha with guiding him back to Christianity and helping him tell his story on the page.

The book's epilogue, as reported by NBC News and excerpted in The Wall Street Journal, describes how the September 2025 killing of political operative Charlie Kirk and a remark from Kirk's widow influenced the couple's decision to expand their family. Vance writes that Usha became pregnant with their fourth child shortly after Kirk's funeral, a development they portray as one factor in a broader, private conversation about family.

Reaction And Takeaway

The 2021 line prompted rebukes from public figures and celebrities when it resurfaced in 2024. In Communion, Vance acknowledges that the phrasing "distracted from the actual point" he intended to make and that he could have advanced his views on family policy without demeaning others.

Sources: Excerpts and reporting by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal, and People Magazine.