Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican from Alaska, joined the growing backlash to JD Vance’s comments calling people who don’t or can’t have kids “childless cat ladies.”
“I said that it was offensive to me as a woman,” Murkowski told CNN’s Manu Raju on Wednesday. “Women make their own determinations as to whether or not they’re going to have children or cats or dogs or how many kids they’re going to have.”
Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, has come under fire for his many resurfaced comments disparaging people who don’t or can’t have children, calling them names more severe than “childless cat lady” – a term many women have since proudly embraced.
When confronted with his earlier comments, Vance apologized to cats but avoided backtracking on his position on childless women.
“What the country would hope for … is a discussion on the issues and the policies,” Murkowski said, according to Raju. “We don’t need to engage in name-calling, we don’t need to create inflammatory statements.”
In the past, Vance has suggested that people without children should pay higher taxes than people with children, though he will likely miss a Senate vote this week on a bill that would essentially do that. He has also proposed shrinking childless adults’ voting power, accusing them of having less of a stake in American democracy.
Murkowski and Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins are the only two Republican senators who support abortion rights. The Alaska lawmaker is also known for semi-regularly blasting her fellow Republicans who support extreme policies and uncritically support Donald Trump, whom she voted to convict for inciting the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Before Trump became the official Republican presidential nominee, Murkowski said she “could not vote” for him, instead urging the party to support former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. In March, the senator said she was considering leaving the Republican Party, calling herself “independent-minded.”
“I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump,” she told CNN at the time. “I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Murkowski has not outright said whether she will get behind Trump now that he is the party’s choice for president.
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