JD Vance is at the centre of a scandal after he mocked Kamala Harris for not having children

Donald Trump's vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has not retracted his scandalous statements made in 2021, in which he called Democratic politicians ‘a bunch of childless cats with miserable lives.’ On the contrary, he reaffirmed his position that politicians ‘must have children’, otherwise they are not interested in the country's future.

Source. This was reported by the BBC.

The 39-year-old Republican's statements were sharply criticised, including by Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston, who posted Vance's interview from 2021.

‘Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. People are focusing too much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said,’ Vance explained to the TV host on The Megyn Kelly Show this Friday.

‘The substance of what I said, Megyn, is sorry, it's true,’ he added.

According to Vance, he is not criticising people who do not have children.

‘It's about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child,’ he said.

‘The simple point I was trying to make is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, does change your perspective in a very serious way,’ Vance said. ’I would argue that our whole society has become skeptical and even hateful of the idea of having children.

In a 2021 interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Vance asked why some high-ranking Democratic politicians do not have children. Among them, he named Kamala Harris, the most likely Democratic candidate in the November elections, who is raising her husband Doug Emhoff's two children.

‘The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,’ Vance said. ’What does it make sense that we put our country in the hands of people who really have no direct interest in its future?’

Vance added that the United States is run by ‘a bunch of childless cats who are living miserable lives because of the choices they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable.’

In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Vance explained: ‘I wish Kamala Harris, her foster children and her entire family all the best. It's not that she's worse than anyone else. It's that her party is pursuing policies that are fundamentally against the best interests of children.’

Vance clarified after his initial interview in 2021 that his criticism was not directed at those who cannot have children for biological or medical reasons.

Friends star Jennifer Aniston, 55, who has spoken openly about her difficulties with trying to get pregnant through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), was the first to attack Vance over his comments.

‘I really can't believe this is coming from a potential vice president of the United States,’ she said.

‘All I can say is, Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is lucky enough to have children of her own someday,’ she added.

Vance has a two-year-old daughter and two sons.

‘I hope she doesn't have to go through IVF,’ Aniston wrote, ’because you're trying to take even that away from her.

Last month, Vance voted to block a Democratic-proposed bill to guarantee access to IVF nationwide.

Background. As a reminder, a German publisher refused to republish J.D. Vance's book because of his ‘political metamorphosis.’