Controversial right-wing Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance bashed Democrats as miserable “childless cat ladies” who don’t serve a “healthy ruling class,” he told Tucker Carlson on Fox News.
The Republican candidate — a venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” — attacked Democrats who don’t have children because, he claimed, “they don’t have a stake” in the system, he explained to Carlson on Thursday night. Vance, 36, who has been married seven years, has two children.
“If we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, we should support more people who actually have kids,” Vance told Carlson.
He singled out Vice President Kamala Harris (who has two stepchildren), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Both Ocasio-Cortez, 31, and Buttigieg, 39, rather famously have dogs, not cats, and Buttigieg isn’t a lady. Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Buttigieg, on Monday slammed Vance’s earlier comments attacking the “childless left” for being heartless and pointed out that the men are currently seeking to adopt a child.
It’s unknown what Ocasio-Cortez’s family plans are — or if that’s anybody’s business or has any effect on her political commitment. Vance could be right, though, that the Democrats he named have no interest in serving the “ruling class.”
Vance’s comment may have been a slip of the tongue (he didn’t correct himself), but Ocasio-Cortez was convinced the candidate said exactly what he actually meant.
She clapped back in a tweet Friday: “When you accidentally let your billionaire funder-talk slip out on TV, you say things like ‘a healthy ruling class.’”
Lots of others piled on Vance, including those who pointed out how little Vance’s Republican Party does to financially support children in struggling families or to fight for services like health care for families.
