Usha Vance, wife of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, said she has grown a "thick skin" amidst media backlash against her husband in recent weeks.
Just before last month's Republican National Convention (RNC), the Ohio senator was tapped as former President Donald Trump's running mate this November. In response, the corporate press and other critics began resurfacing previous comments made by Trump's newly selected running mate, including an infamous "childless cat ladies" comment made during an interview with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
"We are 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," the Ohio senator said at the time. "And so, they want to make the country miserable too."
The Ohio senator then noted many prominent liberal figures were childless.
"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?" the Ohio senator asked.
Vance commented on the backlash to her husband's remarks during a Monday interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt.
When asked about how she handles critics of her husband, Vance said, "that can be hard."
“Sometimes I don’t see it all, and sometimes I do see it and I look at it and think well, this is not the JD I know. This is not accurate," she said. "And other times it might spawn discussions or thoughts about what we should do next or how we should live.” Usha Vance Speaks Out On 'Childless Cat Lady' Controversy pic.twitter.com/OrJAS4xcQE
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 5, 2024
“But I think we’ve been doing this now for a little while, and I’ve gotten kind of accustomed to it and grown a bit of a thick skin,” Vance continued. “I just try to not let it affect the way that I live.”
The Ohio senator's wife then clarified her husband's "childless cat ladies" comment.
“What he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country,” Vance said. “And sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder, and we should be asking ourselves, why is that true? What is it about our leadership and the way they think about the world that makes it so hard sometimes for parents?”
Vance then encouraged women who took offense to her husband's remarks to "look at the real conversation that he’s trying to have and engage with it."
"Understand for those of us who do have families, for the many of us who want to have families and for whom it’s really hard," Vance said. "What can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it easier to live in 2024?"
