Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is criticizing the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, saying his comments criticizing "childless cat ladies" were offensive.
"If the Republican Party is trying to improve its image with women, I don't think that this is working," Murkowski told Politico.
Vance has faced criticism after a 2021 interview resurfaced in which he said the Democratic Party was being run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too."
The Alaska senator said Vance's comments were unfortunate, unnecessary, and "offensive to many women."
"To be so derogatory in this way is offensive to me as a woman," Murkowski said.
Vance said last week that his "childless cat ladies" comment was "sarcasm" and that the larger point in 2021 — and now — is that Democrats are becoming the "anti-family" and "anti-child" party.
"Democrats in the past five, 10 years have become anti-family," Vance said in an interview with Megyn Kelly last week. "It's built into their policies. It's built into the way they talk about parents and children. And it's time that we called that out. I don't think we should back down from it ... I think we should be honest about the problem."
Critics have predictably focused on the "sarcasm" rather than the "substance" of comments he gave during a TV interview, Vance said.
Murkowski has already said she will not vote for former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
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