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Vance, the running mate of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump | Getty Images

Senator Cyrus Vance, former U.S. President Donald Trump's running mate, defended his previous remarks on July 26. He accused U.S. Democrats, including current Vice President Harris, of being miserable "cat ladies without children" who wanted to "put America in pain" and were anti-family and anti-children.

Vance came under fire for days after his "cat lady" comments were resurfaced online after the Ohio Republican was nominated as the party's vice presidential candidate.

Vance’s decision to double down on his comments on Friday, rather than apologize for his previous remarks or say his views have changed, means the Trump campaign can expect the criticism to continue.

"It was a sarcastic comment, and I have nothing against cats," Vance said Friday while attending an event.

"I know the media wants to attack me and want me to back off. But the simple point I make is that people should have children, be fathers, be mothers. I really think it changes your perspective in a very profound way," Vance said.

"Democrats have become so anti-family over the last five or 10 years, and it's baked into their policies, it's baked into the way they talk about parents and children, and it's time for us to call that out," said Vance, who has three children.

On July 18, Trump and Vance became the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates.

"I think we shouldn't back down from this, we should be honest about it," Vance said. This was the first time he explained the new controversy caused by his remarks during his 2021 campaign for the Ohio Senate.

“This is not about criticizing people who don’t have children. I made that clear in my remarks,” Vance said. “This is not about criticizing people who don’t have children for a variety of reasons. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”

"I want to take aim at the left (referring to the Democratic Party), especially the childless left, because I think the rejection of the American family is probably the most harmful and evil thing the left has ever done in this country," Vance said in a speech that day.

Vance noted that while Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez come from different parts of the country and have different backgrounds, "there is one thing that ties them together: None of them have any children."

While Vance explained that he was not targeting people who are "infertile for very complex and important reasons," he also said, "How can you prove that they are invested in the future of this country when none of them have any real commitment to it."

Harris, who is already the de facto Democratic presidential nominee, is stepmother to her husband, Douglas Emhoff's, two children. At the time of Vance's comments, Buttigieg was in the process of adopting twin babies with his partner.
Harris and her husband have no children, but he already had two children when they got married.

A month after publishing his 2021 attack on "women who only have cats and no children," Vance also appeared on Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson's show to expand on his critical views.

"We are in this country right now, literally, run by the Democratic Party, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable with their lives and the choices they've made, so they want to make the country miserable," Vance said.

"It's a fundamental fact that when you look at people like Harris and Buttigieg, the Democratic Party is controlled by these childless people," Vance said.

Vance obviously made a logical error of generalizing from a single case. Cat-raising ladies do not mean not raising children, and cat-raising ladies not having children does not mean they are against family and children. The fact that the well-known Democrats mentioned by Vance do not have children of their own does not mean that they do not like children or oppose having children, nor does it mean that the entire Democratic Party supports not having children and intends to destroy the United States by not having children, nor does it mean that the Democratic Party of the United States is controlled by people who do not have children. Vance's attack is really nonsensical.

Harris has secured the Democratic presidential nomination and will compete with Trump in the 2024 election

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