Four years, one vice presidency, and a book deal later, JD Vance has finally figured out that calling millions of American women 'childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives' was maybe not his finest rhetorical moment. He said so himself, in writing, in his new book 'Communion,' which NBC News got a look at. Better to figure it out eventually than never, we suppose.
What He Actually Said, Since We're Revisiting It
Let's set the scene. It was 2021. Vance was running for Senate in Ohio. He went on Tucker Carlson's show, which at the time was the political equivalent of standing in a town square and shouting your worst opinions at full volume. And he delivered this gem: 'We're effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made.'
He then named names. Kamala Harris. Pete Buttigieg. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 'The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,' Vance declared, arguing they had no 'direct stake' in the country's future. It was the kind of comment that makes political strategists physically wince at their desks.
There was one small factual problem, which Fox News itself points out: Harris has two adult stepchildren. Buttigieg, meanwhile, announced the adoption of two children in the fall of 2021, just weeks after Vance made the remark. So the shot landed with the precision of a blindfolded man throwing darts in a hurricane.
The Regret, Served Lukewarm and Years Late
According to NBC News, Vance writes in 'Communion' that the comment was 'one of the dumbest things I ever said.' He calls it 'boneheaded, intentionally (and successfully) provocative rather than illuminating.' He acknowledges it 'enraged' people and that it distracted from whatever actual point he was trying to make.
The actual point, he now explains, was that American society has 'become pathologically hostile to having kids.' That is, genuinely, a real and debatable policy concern. Declining birth rates, the cost of childcare, the structural pressures on young families, these are things serious people argue about. Vance could have said any of that. He chose 'childless cat ladies' instead.
He also invokes his Catholic faith, writing that 'when I consider the Church's admonition to respect the dignity of every life, this was a clear moment where I failed.' Which is a remarkably gracious framing for what was, in practice, a calculated insult deployed to rile up a cable news audience.
The Timing Here Is Not Subtle
Vance is not writing this book as a form of private self-reflection. He is writing it while being openly discussed as the leading heir apparent to the MAGA movement once Trump's second term ends. Fox News reports that in a separate interview, Vance said Trump would be 'very supportive' of his future political ambitions, and that he and his wife Usha will make decisions after the midterms.
So let's call this what it is: 2028 prep work. The 'childless cat ladies' comment haunted his 2024 vice presidential campaign badly enough that it became a genuine political liability. Taylor Swift referenced it. Merchandise was made. The phrase followed him everywhere. Clearing it off the books now, with a book full of mea culpas, is basic political housekeeping before the real campaign begins.
That doesn't mean the regret is fake. It might be entirely sincere. But the timing of its publication, tucked into a book that is very clearly meant to broaden his appeal beyond the base, is not an accident.
The Part Where He Wants Credit for Learning
Vance writes, again per NBC News, that he 'could have made that point much more effectively, and with the benefit of showing a little charity to the many Americans who, some for reasons beyond their control, don't have children.' That last part is the acknowledgment that does the most work. Infertility. Medical circumstances. Life just not working out the way you planned. These are real things that affect real people, and painting all of them as miserable ideologues wrecking the country was spectacularly cruel.
To his credit, he says so. To his discredit, it took four years, a vice presidency, and an impending presidential campaign to get there. The people he insulted didn't have the luxury of waiting four years to feel insulted.
The Dingo Take
Here is the thing about political apologies in book form: they are carefully engineered products. Every word gets workshopped by staffers, reviewed by lawyers, stress-tested against future attack ads. When Vance calls the 'childless cat ladies' remark 'boneheaded,' he is not exactly falling on a sword. He is performing the minimum viable contrition required to sand down a rough edge before a national campaign. Which, fine. Politicians do this. We don't have to pretend it's a spiritual awakening.
What makes the whole episode genuinely maddening is the gap between what Vance says he meant and what he actually chose to say. He had a real argument to make about pro-family policy and the cultural pressures against parenthood. It is a legitimate argument. He could have made it with data, with empathy, with the kind of moral seriousness he is now claiming in retrospect. Instead, he went on Tucker Carlson's show and sneered at women without children. The cruelty was the point. The 'childless cat ladies' framing was not a clumsy attempt to make a nuanced argument. It was red meat, precisely aimed, and it worked exactly as intended.
Now he wants credit for figuring out it was mean. Sure. But the voters he insulted are still out there, and a paragraph in a book does not undo three years of that phrase living rent-free in the national conversation. Vance is smart enough to know that. The question for 2028 is whether anyone else is smart enough to remember it.
