WSJ editorial board slams Vance over cat lady remark

The Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance over previous comments he made about “childless cat ladies.”

“The comment is the sort of smart-aleck crack that gets laughs in certain right-wing male precincts,” the Journal editorial board said in a new opinion piece. “But it doesn’t play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.”

Vance has been recently facing criticism for comments he made in 2021 in which he said 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.”

“The remark has gone viral on social media and is being portrayed as an example of chauvinist views,” the Journal editorial board wrote. “They’re mocking it on TMZ, a sure sign that this is Mr. Vance’s first big cultural impression, and not a good one.”

Vance said the remarks about “childless cat ladies” were “sarcastic” Friday on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.”

“I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this, Megyn, but 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,” Vance said.

In response to Vance’s Friday comments about entering parenthood, the Journal editorial board said Vance was “right about that, but then why didn’t he say it in 2021?”

“One possibility is that at some level Mr. Vance really doesn’t respect people who make different life choices,” the board continued. “Politicians often reveal their true beliefs when talking to supporters, as [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton did when she sneered at the ‘basket of deplorables’ who supported [former President] Trump in 2016.”

In a statement emailed to The Hill, Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said “the leftwing media” has “twisted Senator Vance’s words and spun up a false narrative about his position on the issues.”

Vance spokesperson William Martin also said in an emailed statement to The Hill that “It comes as no surprise that Democrats and their allies in the media have twisted Senator Vance’s words in an effort to smear him and protect Kamala Harris.”

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign.

Updated at 4:21 p.m. EST.