Vice President JD Vance does something in his new book that probably won't help his status in the Trump White House: actually admitting to a mistake.
In his new book, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," which will be released Tuesday, Vance admits that denigrating former Vice President Kamala Harris and other women in the Democratic Party as "childless cat ladies" was "boneheaded."
The vice president writes that "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," in a passage excerpted by NBC News.
"The comment caused two firestorms: the first when I made it, the second years later during a political campaign," Vance said, emphasizing that "it was a boneheaded comment, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating."
Vance first made the anti-cat-lady crack in a 2021 speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference, and specifically named Harris as a member of the "childless left" who have "no physical commitment to the future of this country."
The cat lady critique resurfaced during the 2024 election and, of course, sparked backlash. However, Vance defended it to Megyn Kelly at the time as "a sarcastic comment," while insisting he has nothing against cats or dogs.
"People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, I'm sorry, it's true," Vance said.
Vance's wife, Usha Vance, also attempted to defend her husband's catty comments as "a quip" taken out of context that, in her mind, expressed sympathy for parents.
Still, JD Vance eventually told The New York Times in October 2024 that while he believed in the substance behind the insult, he wished he had phrased it differently.
"I think most people who probably have watched this have said something dumb — have said something that they wish they had put differently," he said.
