Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign hilariously used a video featuring her running mate, Tim Walz, talking about J.D. Vance's now-infamous remarks about "childless cat ladies" to great effect—with a little help from Walz's own rescue cat.
In 2021, Donald Trump's running mate told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country is run by “Democrats… corporate oligarchs… a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
Vance's sexist remarks continued:
“It’s just a basic fact — you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
And to the delight of cat lovers, Harris's campaign, through its official KamalaHQ X account, posted a video montage showing several pictures of Walz's cat, Afton, and the following caption:
“Cat people for Harris-Walz.”
Walz, through voiceover, can be heard saying the following about Vance:
"My God, they went after cat people. Good luck with that. Turn on the internet and see what cat people do when you go after them. These people ... It would be funny if it wasn't so sad."
You can see the video below.
And here's a picture of Walz with Afton while we're at it.
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It was cute, it was shady—and it was everything to cat lovers around the country.
Vance was also criticized by economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who called the sexist remark "the kind of comment that makes you wonder if Vance thinks that he has been nominated by the Republican Party to serve as the vice president of the Republic of Gilead," a reference to the dystopia depicted in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, in which women are forced to bear children against their will.
Krugman went on to say that "the increase in women’s freedom, including the protection of their right to decide whether to have children, as something that benefits all of us — men included." He added, however, that "there are many people like Vance who want to limit or even take away that freedom."
Because of this controversy—to say nothing of others, particularly his hardline views on reproductive freedoms—Vance's favorability ratings have plummeted; only 31.5% of Americans view him favorably as of August 8, while 40.8% view him unfavorably, according to data from FiveThirtyEight.
While Trump's campaign has insisted Trump is "thrilled" with his pick and has no intention of dropping Vance, concerns that Vance is weighing down the GOP ticket persist.
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