Trump downplays JD Vance’s ‘childless cat ladies’ comments

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sought to limit the impact that vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance‘s comments about Democratic women without children would have on his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a largely chaotic panel at the National Association of Black Journalists’s conference Wednesday in Chicago, Trump claimed that he did not know of Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies” before he selected him as his running mate.

“No, I know this: He is very family-oriented, and he thinks family is a great thing,” Trump told a panel consisting of ABC’s Rachel Scott, Fox News’s Harris Faulkner, and Semafor’s Kadia Goba. “I know people with families, I know people with great families, I know people with very troubled families, and I also know people with no families. They didn’t meet the right person. Things happen. You go through life, you don’t meet the right person.”

After more questioning from Scott and Goba, Trump reiterated the comment “He strongly believes in family.”

“What he’s saying is that he thinks the family experience is a very important thing,” Trump elaborated. “It’s a very good thing. But that doesn’t mean that if you grow up and you grow older and you don’t meet somebody that would be wonderful to meet and would have been good that that’s a bad thing. He’s not saying that.”

Later on, Trump sought to flip the script, saying that Democrats were the ones who are struggling to appeal to families.

“I think that the Democrat Party is really the one that has the problem. I think they’re radical on abortion because they’re allowing abortion in the ninth month,” Trump said before the moderators claimed that abortion at that late stage is illegal in every state.

Trump was again asked if his campaign supports Vance’s statement that people with children should have more votes than a person without children.

“Well no,” he responded. “But it’s not something I have ever heard before.”

Vance has faced steep backlash for his comments since joining Trump’s ticket during the Republican National Convention earlier in July, which Faulkner questioned the former president about.

“I chose him because he’s a very strong believer in work and the working man and woman, and especially the working man and woman who have been treated very unfairly,” Trump said.

Vance is the author of the popular book Hillbilly Elegy, which was produced as a movie in 2020. Trump pointed to the Ohio senator’s ability to appeal to working-class people in the Midwest, a critical area he needs to win to be elected president again.

“He’s a very smart guy, without the benefit of having a family that has contacts, like a father that was well connected,” Trump said. “He got into Yale Law School. He’s somebody that was born in a rough situation. Most of the people know that situation because it was very well-documented in his book. And I have a lot of respect for somebody that can get into Yale and become one of the best students in Yale that meets a young woman at Yale who was also outstanding and getting married. They have a beautiful family.”

But when Faulkner asked if Vance would be ready on Day One, Trump equivocated in his response and did not completely answer yes.

“I’ve always had great respect for him and for the other candidates too,” Trump started. “But I will say this, and I think this is well-documented: Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact. You have two or three days where there’s a lot of commotion as to who, like you’re having it on the Democrat side, who it’s going to be, and then that dies down, and it’s all about the presidential pick. Virtually never has it mattered.

“Historically, the choice of a vice president makes no difference,” Trump continued. “You’re voting for the president, and you can have a vice president who’s outstanding in every way. And I think J.D is, I think that all of them would have been but, but you’re not voting that way. You’re voting for the president. You’re voting for me. If you like me, I’m going to win. If you don’t like me, I’m not going to win.”