CNN host Anderson Cooper and guest Brian Lanza clashed on Friday night over earlier comments made by Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, who called the Republican a “childless cat-loving woman.”
Lanza appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 to discuss former President Donald Trump's selection of Vance as his running mate at the Republican National Convention last week. Cooper began by asking Lanza whether he thought the Trump campaign had “regret” following the resurfaced footage of Vance's stance on the family tax cut. (Related: 'He's trustworthy': Pollster Frank Luntz denies claims J.D. Vance was a bad choice for Trump as VP)
“Absolutely not,” Lanza says. “I think just yesterday President Trump said in an interview that he would be proud and would love to have JD as a presidential candidate. Within a week of JD coming on the scene, his book Hillbilly Elegy sold 600,000 copies. It became a top-rated movie on Netflix. So there's definitely growing interest in JD. It's positive interest and it's only going to grow.”
“He has statements that he needs to address. I was a consultant on his Senate campaign. I helped start the JD Super PAC. So, obviously, he needs to clean up those statements. The media will do everything in their power to distort those statements. We've seen that happen over the past week…” Lanza continued.
Cooper then interjected, saying it was “hard to spin” Vance's comments about calling her a “childless Catwoman.”
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“No, what I'm saying is that JD is twisting this to say that families with more children should get a tax credit. If you think about it, it's a thoughtful response. Most Western countries are experiencing huge population declines,” Lanza continued. “They have to figure out how to deal with that problem. Japan is suffering greatly from population decline. And Hungary has actually found a solution to that by encouraging families to have more children.
“You love Hungary and Viktor Orban,” Cooper retorted.
Media outlets have recently revisited Vance's previous comments on the family tax cut and interviews in which he criticized Democrats for not helping American families. In a 2021 interview, Vance commented to Fox News that he would stand by his position while decrying “childless cat women.” according to To ABC News.
“This country is effectively run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and a bunch of childless catwomen who are miserable about their lives and the choices they've made, so they want to make the whole country miserable,” Vance previously said.
In an interview with political commentator Megyn Kelly on Friday, Vance stood firm in his defense of the family and decried the comments as sarcastic. To tell “People are focusing on the sarcasm and not the substance. And Meghan, the substance of what I said is, sorry, true.”
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