Recently minted GOP vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance has displayed a history of disparaging adults without children, saying in an unearthed podcast clip from 2020 that childless Americans are “more sociopathic.”
Since being selected as Donald Trump’s 2024 running-mate, Vance has been in hot water as a 2021 clip resurfaced in which he argued that the country is being run by “childless cat ladies” to the detriment of U.S. politics. The resurfaced clip prompted intense backlash, including from some influential Hollywood circles. While Vance claimed the comments were “sarcastic” in a recent interview, CNN’s KFILE identified a consistent pattern in the Ohio Senator’s rhetoric.
In an unearthed podcast appearance from 2020, Vance said that adults without children, particularly those in the U.S. “leadership class,” were “more sociopathic” than parents.
“You know, I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less mentally stable,” he said. “And of course, you talk about going on Twitter – final point I’ll make is you go on Twitter and almost always the people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don’t have kids at home.”
Additionally, Vance used his “childless cat ladies” line to fundraise via email.
“We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths – they’re invested in NOTHING because they’re not invested in this country’s children,” Vance wrote in one 2021 email. “Fighting back won’t be easy – our childless opponents have a lot of free time. That’s why I need YOU to stand with me.”
Another reads, “Our country is basically run by childless Democrats who are miserable in their own lives and want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
A Vance spokesperson told CNN, “He was talking about politicians on the left who support policies that are explicitly anti-child and anti-family. The media can obsess over it all they want, but he’s not going to back down when it comes to advocating for policies that protect parental rights and encourage people to have more kids.”
